Genealogy Chat

Just wondering, does anyone find - and this may apply to unusual or rare surnames more than common ones - wide and baffling ranges of mistranslations of the names they're hunting for? I have been looking and looking for my Siggs relatives, which is not a very common name and have managed to locate some on the various census records today where they had been missing. To date, they have been mistranslated as Liggs, Sigge, Leggs, Seggs and even Tiggs so I now have a range of options on what to search for. So I have spent a good bit of time submitting corrections to Ancestry.

Arundale is a nightmare, variously Arrundale, Arrendale, Arandale, Arundel, Arrandal, Arundle and a few more i cant remember. I also spent months looking for my great granndmother Eva Eleanor White, she was Eva Glenor White in the BMD's. Also i have Dysons who are Tysons and Disons, Pilsons who are sometimes Wilsons and Rilsons, Farrers who become Farrows and Thistlewoods who turn into Thistletons, plus loads more i cant remember of the top of my head.

Kate For years I have kept a list of mistranscriptions for HOLDEN. It is up to 27 variations, and this week I have just added a 28th! OC

I'm still trying to find out the maiden name of one of my Australian GG-grandmothers. I can't find her marriage or birth, but according to the birth, marriage and death certs. of her children, her name may have been Tickle, Tittlen, Fittlen, Titland or Didley. The really annoying thing is that there's a submitted birth and marriage for her on the IGI with dates that fit really well but don't have entries in the NSW BMD index - and I have no idea who submitted them.

Something else I meant to mention, I often spend forever trying to find people (my Siggs in particular) then find the mistranscription on Ancestry as, say, 'Liggs' and when I check the image I wonder how they got to that name when the old writing clearly says 'Siggs'. Perhaps I'm just getting used to the old writing. Maybe Ancestry are always finding new transcribers who aren't. I've started putting extra notes on my Reunion tree - for instance, when I do find a person I'm after, I'll note down their residence on the census, then add in brackets that in that particular year, Ursula has been transcribed as 'Wenta' etc so I can find it easily later.

Kate, I put a thread on here last night about mis transcribed names on FREEBMD, the problem is getting them corrected ,as its not just the odd name but complete qtrs SPINK became SPINE and SPINKS to SPINES, those are taken from the GRO index, yet many different transcribers have read them incorrectly. As for census info my FURNISS have been FURNESS HARNESS and even FRANCIS on a marriage certificate, and as for TAZIKER they became TASSIKER TACHIKER TASSICAR TAZAKER and STAZICAR its a nightmare trying to find the correct family on the Censuss. Nicky

I've never had any trouble getting corrections accepted by FreeBMD, although they take a while. But you have to realise that they only correct transcription errors; if the name in the register's wrong but the transcriber has copied it correctly, it won't be altered.

That is a good point, Nicky. I did try doing some transcribing for FreeBMD a while back but never got past the first page because the syndicate leader sent the file back every time I made a mistake. I had at least three or four attempts at just one page and have never had time since to try again. I have a relative named Caroline Jane Hayr Siggs (same family as the ones above) who appears in the searchable database simply as Caroline * Siggs, district 'illegible'. I clicked the link to see the scanned image and even I could see that the image gave her full name as I wrote it above and that the district was York. I can't work out the solution to that because one one hand I see that the index should be correctly transcribed as far as possible, yet on the other I see items in the searchable database that are transcribed to far poorer standards than my own attempts. Perhaps some syndicate leaders have higher standards than others.

FreeBMD transcriptions are *far* better than Ancestry transcriptions as a rule.

I had trouble finding my grandfather's father on one census on Ancestry. I looked for months ............................. until I discovered that Schofield had become Silufield. It was very clearly Schofield on the image! It was after that episode that I started using only christian name(s) as a regular part of my search pattern!