Genealogy Chat

Nichola I have a Smoothy family that were mistranscribed as Timothy! If only the enumerators didn't use such florid letters and wrote in block caps, it would save a lot of stress! nell

Apparantly Shrewsbury is now in Ireland!!

Hi Vicky, Here's one for you! In a desperate moment, was searching by initials only, hoping to find an elusive person, in a hospital etc, listed just by initials. Was drawn to a couple of entries where, in place of birth, it said 'No at cutained' !!!! I just had to have a look at the entry to see exactly what it did say. In the place of birth box it says 'Not ascertained' OMG!! Debbie

I've just found a male (son) named Alice instead of Abel.

It is not unusual for Ancestry.com to have transcribed Brother as Mother, even when the sex is listed as male!

Just a tip for anyone searching in NE England. I've lost count of the number of times ancestors born in Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland have been indexed as born in Berwickshire, Scotland.

I found my rellies described as living in Rochdale, Lanarkshire. I passed them by several times until the penny dropped - the image said 'Lanacshire' meaning Lancashire but some clever pooter programme had translated this as Lanarkshire. Can't remember where I found another one, but they were all born in Salford, MARS! Olde Crone

Just found Geo. Hopkins on the 1861 census. He was born in St. Pancras, Mexico!

Sylvie, it's a list of baptisms on 3 Mar 1649/50 at Sheffield Parish Church, lifted from an old printed book, in which they're transcribed exactly as written out in Latin in the register http://images.ancestry%2Eco.uk/iexec?htx=view&cat=YORKSHIRE&path=95.2&id=0107&r=5538&rc=193,290,309,321;523,287,641,321&fn=samuel&ln=nichols&pid=9740 Samuel son of Robert Nichols Joseph son of Edward Unwin Sarah daughter of Lawrence Pearson Mary daughter of John Oxspring Martha daughter of John Newbould Sarah daughter of Humphrey Wilkinson Martha daughter of Robert Pointon Sarah daughter of Simon Stones Mary daughter of Robert Boughton Mary daughter of Gilbert Turner Sarah daughter of Stephen Fox

I agree that so many of these mistranscriptions are amazing, but the ones that make me REALLY cross are on the 1881 census: There are around 260,000 people recorded as living in Islington. However, over 6,200 of these (according to Ancestry, who I assume got the details from the LDS) are living in a fictitious place called ISLINSTON. Then there is Hammersmith. According to Ancestry/LDS there is no such place, should you be living there in 1881.....they have transcribed it at HARMMERSMITH. That's 72,000+ records! I'm sure there must be others - these I came across by chance! Merry

hello O.C this info was on ancestry under all records for my Nichols - usually there is one name but on this occasion there are all these (see prev msge) Dont know my Latin from my whatever...but didnt expect all these names. Sorry for the late reply..tonight I have been looking thru orphanges, again with no luck.. Sylvie

Don't know what you have been trawling, but you've got it in Latin - old baptisms by the look of it! Olde Crone

Having spent the best part of 90 minutes trawling thru I came across this;- Samuel' Roberti Nichols Josephus Ed'r'i Unwin Sara Lawrencii Pearson Maria Johis Oxspring Martha Johis Newbould Sara Humphr'i Wilkinson Martha Roberti Pointon Sara Symonis Stones Maria Roberti Boughton Maria Gilberti Turner Sara Stephani Fox Vital: location, Yorkshire, England ...can someone please decipher...I'm still looking for my Samuel Nichols...do you think I have Italian in my blood line??

When I was new to the Internet, I fell on the LDS 1881 with great joy, but was rather puzzled that I couldnt find a particular branch of the family. I trawled the same names again and again and AGAIN, ignoring a family who were apparently born in Lanarkshire. Took ages for the penny to drop - there isn't, as far as I know, either a Rochdale or an Oldham in Lanarkshire, they are in Lancashire. Whoever transcribed it, made a typo and put Lanacshire - the computer picked that up and translated it as Lanarkshire! Olde Crone

I too have looked for Prussian relatives , the only way is to copy and paste the 'preusen' with the funny 'S' it then brings up matches, of course this means you have to find one first! And mine was Prussian 'Nat. Brit Subj' which was clear on the image but ancestry put 'Apina Mat Bri Nui' has anyone ever heard of that country! Kim

Jess has just located my missing Ellen Tooley transcribed as Texley although the image is clearly Tooley And my 3xgrandmother Mathilda Warburton is on 1861 as Wombomton No wonder it took me forever to find her

mine was not a silly as others... but my clapton was often typed as Clopton. Another one was Smithy who appeared in the 1881, but disappeared in 1891. It was not until when I looked at the census record themselves, that I realised that 'Smithy' was 'Timothy!' So, it goes to show you, that it does pay to check original work! N.

I had to have a laugh last night when checking for my great great grandfather...found a likely candidate but he was 333 years old!!!! As if they couldn't guess this might not be quite true! Also Jemima shown as Gimimmer..but that was the image too, I guess they couldn't spell their own name. LOL

I'm finding a lot of my hubby's Irish rellies apparently came from Poland. The names don't look, or sound, the remotest bit foreign. This is in Lancashire where there were a lot of Irish people coming in via Liverpool, so its not unusual to have Ireland as a place of birth. Why don't they use a bit of common sense if something looks strange, instead of putting the first thing that comes to mind?

Family historians are taught to transcribe exactly what they see, no matter how bizarre it appears. Ancestry do not follow this rule. They appear to have birthplace codes, so that if one character is wrong, Kent is translated as Kenya etc. This I find irritating in the extreme, but am forced to live with. What is much more difficult, especially for beginners, is the spelling of some of the birthplaces. I can establish how many people were born in France or Sweden or Russia, but not who was born in Prussia. If I remember correctly, Prussia is rendered as Preben, with one of those back to front Bs. I've tried looking at 'help' on Ancestry, but it doesn't even recognise Prussia as a search term.