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Re: FamilySearch introducing errors

From Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net>
Newsgroups soc.genealogy.britain, soc.genealogy.computing, soc.genealogy.misc, alt.genealogy, england.genealogy.misc
Subject Re: FamilySearch introducing errors
Date 2021-10-30 06:54 +0200
Organization Khanya Publications
Message-ID <tcjpngdgpf5bbtv4ss5aslqnp25tqhbcl0@4ax.com> (permalink)
References <gganngtc0omadq2a46sdtkfsmi7gsu8i8m@4ax.com> <2YGdnbFl0vaRKOb8nZ2dnUU78VPNnZ2d@brightview.co.uk>

Cross-posted to 5 groups.

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On Fri, 29 Oct 2021 09:48:08 +0100, Ian Goddard
<ianng@austonley.org.uk> wrote:

>On 29/10/2021 09:07, Steve Hayes wrote:
>> FamilySearch has been plugging standardised place-names, which is not
>> a bad idea but has now gone too far -- their software triest to
>> automatically substitute "standard" place names for non-standard ones,
>> but in the process it often inserts a place name that is entirely
>> wrong and misleading, wand will ruin the usefulness of their
>> collaborative family tree.
>>
>
>FamilySearch have a long history of mangling places.  From the errors 
>I've seen it appears that batches of records from multiple places must 
>have been entered without changing the place name on the data entry 
>screen and any QA procedure has failed to trap it.

Yes, indeed. There have been transcrtiption errors, where someone has
transcribed a parish register and gone on to transcribing another
parish, without changing the name of the parish on the entry form. It
is the kind of error where it might be qute easy to do a batch
correction. 

But what I am talking about here is not a human error of a fallible
transcriber, but a deliberately introduced software error, which would
be much more difficult to trace and correct.

Here is an example:

Mount Fenning
England and Wales Census, 1841
Name: Mount Fenning
Event Type:	Census
Event Date:	1841
Event Place: Chichester St Martin, Chichester, Sussex, England, United
Kingdom
Event Place (Original):	St Martin, Essex, England
County:	Essex
Parish:	St Martin
Residence Note:	Copping'S Buildings
Sex:	Female
Age:	9
Age (Original):	9
Birth Year (Estimated):	1832
Birthplace:	Essex
Page Number:	12
Registration Number:	HO107
Piece/Folio:	344/24
Affiliate Record Type:	Institution
Affiliate Image Identifier:
GBC/1841/0344/0453&parentid=GBC/1841/0001424136
Household	Role	Sex	Age	Birthplace
Mount Fenning		Female	9	Essex
Mary Fenning		Female	45	Essex
Mary Fenning		Female	25	Essex
John Fenning		Male	20	Essex
Sarah Fenning		Female	16	Essex
Thomas Fenning		Male	13	Essex

When I copy this event to my own family tree, it does not copy the
original event place, but the spurious Chichester one. 

I hope the people at FamilySearch will soon correct this software bug,
but until they do, people who use FamiloySearch should be warned that
they need to treat every place name as suspect. 

Ancestry.com have long done this kind of thing, but it is new on
FamilySearch. 


-- 
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/
     http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afgen/

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Thread

FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-29 10:07 +0200
  Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-29 09:48 +0100
    Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-30 06:54 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Graeme Wall <rail@greywall.demon.co.uk> - 2021-10-30 08:38 +0100
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:32 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2021-10-30 08:51 -0400
        Locations (was: Re: FamilySearch introducing errors) "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2021-10-30 15:38 +0100
          Re: Locations (was: Re: FamilySearch introducing errors) knuttle <keith_nuttle@sbcglobal.net> - 2021-10-30 18:06 -0400
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-30 16:02 +0100
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors "J. P. Gilliver (John)" <G6JPG@255soft.uk> - 2021-10-30 16:23 +0100
          Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:34 +0200
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2021-10-31 20:26 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2021-10-31 17:25 +0000
    Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2022-02-14 23:23 +0000
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Daniel65 <daniel47@eternal-september.org> - 2022-02-15 22:42 +1100
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2022-02-16 07:45 +0200
      Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> - 2022-02-22 14:15 -0600
        Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Ian Goddard <ianng@austonley.org.uk> - 2022-02-23 15:45 +0000
          Re: FamilySearch introducing errors Nigel Reed <sysop@endofthelinebbs.com> - 2022-02-24 17:34 -0600

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