1939 Register errors - findmypast

[Nell]

Yes, I gave in and bought some credits! Checked on my Dad (not there, as suspected, he was abroad in the army already). But found his family as:

Annie Ellyia (should be Eliza)
Ja? (should be Jabez)
Jonel (should be Jeuel)

Not spending my precious credits on seeing the originals, but I'm guessing the handwriting was a bit difficult to decipher.

[kiterunner]

Yes, I found Sloper indexed as Hoper, and my great-aunt born 1912 instead of 1917. I wouldn't want to correct the second of these as it would mean she had to be redacted and I would have to get a death certificate to get her reinstated, but I was quite willing to put in a correction for the first one, only there was nothing to click on to submit a correction. There is supposed to be a "Report an error" option if you click "Update the record", but I can only assume you only get this if you have actually paid to view, as I don't see it on the free preview.

[James18]

Kate, I think it mentions in the FAQ that only subscription holders can report errors and submit 'missing' deaths. Others have to contact TNA, Kew.

[Glen TK]

I've had a search and found a household that has to be way out

A mother and son plus a much older stepson?. Except for the fact the year of birth for the stepson is wrong and he died in 1936 out of county, (1911 and his death cert are for the same out of county address as are birth certs for his 3 kids). While there are 13 individuals with the name in my tree only two were born in the right decade, the remainder are either pre 1820 or post 1890, the latter all documented out of county throughout their lives.

Of the 12 aunts and uncles on my maternal side only one appears in results, again out of county. I have his marriage cert just a week or so before the register, marriage and residence two hundred miles away from the register result so I doubt the result is him. Three aunts emigrated so they are missing, one was 15 at the time and the rest of them appear never to have existed.

[kiterunner]

Kate, I think it mentions in the FAQ that only subscription holders can report errors and submit 'missing' deaths. Others have to contact TNA, Kew.

I have still got a subscription, James, though it expires soon.

I asked on their Facebook page about how to report an error and they said it was an option on "Update a record" but when I said I couldn't see it on there, they never replied. They keep saying (to other people) that it is an option on the transcription, so I guess they mean the paid transcription, not the free one.

As for submitting death certs, yes, they say that is only available for subscribers, but I haven't seen anything on FMP's site saying annual subscribers only - I only saw that on TNA's site. If it is annual subscribers only then FMP are being very misleading.

Hopefully a monthly subscriber will try submitting one and see what happens?

[JayG]

Kate I read on one of the many FB posts monthly subscribers can submit death cert & open a record for free.

[Margaret in Burton]

From what I've read on this and other forums I'm glad I've decided not to bother for a while. Kate found the only thing I really needed to know and that was confirmation of the date of birth of Peter Henry Harrison. She did that on the free search. I know where my parents and grandparents were.

[Glen TK]

Genealogists are delighted to now have access to the 1939 register, quite possibly the most extensive collection of overpriced mistranscriptions yet released.

[Margaret in Burton]

Well said Glen

[kiterunner]

Kate I read on one of the many FB posts monthly subscribers can submit death cert & open a record for free.

That's good to know, Jay.

[Olde Crone]

Tut, Glen, you don't have to use it if you object to the cost!

As for mistranscriptions, let me take you by the hand and lead you through Ancestry.....

OC

[kiterunner]

The trouble is, FMP keep saying their transcribers on this project had an accuracy rate of 98.5%, and use that as a justification of the high price. Though looking at their information about the Register on their site, they say "Our quality assurance process dictates an accuracy rate in readable documents of over 98%, and so meticulous work has been done to ensure that this release is the best it can possibly be for our users."

So if a high proportion of the 1939 Register wasn't classed as "readable", I suppose that would lead to a low accuracy rate.

[Glen TK]

The trouble is, FMP keep saying their transcribers on this project had an accuracy rate of 98.5%, and use that as a justification of the high price. Though looking at their information about the Register on their site, they say "Our quality assurance process dictates an accuracy rate in readable documents of over 98%, and so meticulous work has been done to ensure that this release is the best it can possibly be for our users."

So if a high proportion of the 1939 Register wasn't classed as "readable", I suppose that would lead to a low accuracy rate.


I'll hold my hands up and say I have viewed a household with just 3 people in it, I was pretty sure it was mis transcribed and yup, it was. Someone has assumed that Goulson and Toulson in a household are all Goulson family. I'm at a loss with a nearby household of Toulson family however, the matching forenames and dob from the searches are transcribed as a family by the surname of Andrews, so Toulson and Andrews are close variants then. I'll be sure to check the bmd and census to round up a few missing entries with the variant. Maybe the entire 2% of errors are exclusive to my tree?

[peppie]

has anyone queried who they outsourced the transcriptions to?

*la la la lal la la la la ala lala * ;)

[Glen TK]

Tut, Glen, you don't have to use it if you object to the cost!

As for mistranscriptions, let me take you by the hand and lead you through Ancestry.....

OC

I think it's extortionate to be honest OC but just to prove to myself how bad it is I did view a household. I predicted the error before viewing, if the accuracy of transcriptions are half as accurate as my prediction then it might be a valid dataset.

[Olde Crone]

Glen

I honestly don't think the cost is any more extortionate than any other record we buy in pursuit of our hobby.

FMP paid £20 million for this dataset, then had to transcribe it and put it online, which can't have been cheap even if they did use rubbish transcribers. I never expect any transcriptions to be particularly accurate because it is very often difficult to interpret someone else's handwriting. And to be fair, you could hardly expect FMP or anyone else really, to say "Here it is, we've made a mess of the transcriptions".

I do understand how frustrating it is when you see expensive credits vanishing without any concrete result - I wasted £££££ on SP looking at wrong census records for instance.

I'm not sticking up for FMP. I'm just resigned to the fact that these things cost money and FMP exists to make a profit, nothing else. If we want the goods, we have to pay the price and thus encourage them to purchase other data sets which might solve a mystery for someone.

OC

[James18]

I do understand how frustrating it is when you see expensive credits vanishing without any concrete result - I wasted £££££ on SP looking at wrong census records for instance.
I honestly don't understand how it is possible to do Scottish genealogy unless you already know exactly who you're looking for. It's a pure guessing game, and works out incredibly expensive -- especially when, once you run out of names you already knew about, you start getting far more misses than hits.

I really wish Scottish and Irish BMD records were up on Ancestry, so I could actually start searching properly. Unless I can get in touch with some of my relatives by sheer chance (as I don't know who some of the living ones even are) I'll probably never be able to complete my Irish-Scottish family trees. :(

[ElizabethHerts]

Haha! I have found my grandfather away from home. He was at Harrogate. He worked for the Air Ministry in London and they sent him to visit aircraft firms etc.

His surname of "Purkis" has been transcribed as "Perkins".

I know it's him as his forenames are given correctly as "Cecil H J" and his dob is OK.

[Macbev]

I honestly don't understand how it is possible to do Scottish genealogy unless you already know exactly who you're looking for. It's a pure guessing game, and works out incredibly expensive -- especially when, once you run out of names you already knew about, you start getting far more misses than hits.

I really wish Scottish and Irish BMD records were up on Ancestry, so I could actually start searching properly. Unless I can get in touch with some of my relatives by sheer chance (as I don't know who some of the living ones even are) I'll probably never be able to complete my Irish-Scottish family trees. :(

Guess I was lucky to begin my search in pre-Scotland's People Ancestry days, when I used the IGI to track down the births of my Scots and was able to order in films of the OPRs to get the images at minimal expense.

Then I got extra lucky and was found online by a distantly related person researching the same family (this was about the time email was invented :D) who not only lived in the home territory in Scotland but who was willing to look for other branches during her annual foray into Edinburgh.

I was able to wrap up most of OH's family about the time the Ancestry mistranscriptions became available. My distant rellie sends me SP vouchers as Christmas pressies, so I have been able to ice the cake with the fine details.

The Irish side was another matter...but the recently released RC Parish records have helped a good deal.

[ElizabethHerts]

Re. Scotland's People - all I have for my Scottish ancestors (one quarter of my tree) are the bare bones. If I'm lucky a dob, marriage and burial. On my English branches I have been able to view lots of PRs, find out lots of extra facts through the National Archives' Discovery database or the county record offices, find countless wills, etc. On my Scottish side I have none of the extra details. The Scottish authorities don't seem to have the information out there in an accessible manner.

I'm sure there is more available - I just wish it was easier to access.

In the early days I too wasted so much money trying to make a start. I didn't have any information apart from a couple of (common) names and the dob of my grandmother.

[Glen TK]

I've always found the Scottish records far less hassle than the English, granted one surname was a little more unusual but even the more common names weren't an issue or resulted in lots of incorrect results.

I'm just amazed how many family are missing from the 1939 though, a family with 12 children, all born pre 1924, three died overseas, of the remaining 9 only one died after 1991 but not a single one appears in the results. I also have a surname with around 450-500 bmd events on freebmd but according to the 1939 there are over 2000 with the name in one county and over 4,500 throughout England and Wales.

[Olde Crone]

I was able to do the bare bones of my Scottish family with ease and speed and at relatively little cost by buying bmds online which have so much more detail on them than English certs. I also managed to find a few wills, lots of monumental inscriptions (free) and various other bits and pieces but I am uncomfortably aware that I have not much "padding". It was just the Scottish census which I found wasteful of credits.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

I think the number of mistranscriptions in the 1939 register is a bit disappointing, because FMP always had the reputation of being a lot more accurate than Ancestry.

[James18]

The good thing about the 1939 Register is that, using the free search, you can work out someone's date of birth by just going through the months, and seeing when they appear, and then through the days of that month. Yes, it's tedious, but it gets the job done.

Using this method has enabled me to find DOBs for several relatives, although in one case he seems to have put (or someone else has transcribed) an incorrect date, but the correct year. I'm not sure the reason for this as I haven't paid to unlock the household, but he is definitely appearing with a November rather than March DOB. Very odd.

It's a shame the Register isn't updated with the dates people die, as they are added on to it. I suppose I understand the reason, but that would have been great for researchers.

[Merry]

The good thing about the 1939 Register is that, using the free search, you can work out someone's date of birth by just going through the months, and seeing when they appear, and then through the days of that month.

That's if you don't need the date to find them in the first place!! :rolleyes:

[James18]

That's if you don't need the date to find them in the first place!! :rolleyes:
Yes, obviously. :D

[kiterunner]

This gives a clue as to how the records on a page could get all muddled up:
https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/watch-1436591498.html
Owing to privacy reasons, rather than dealing with horizontal rows of text each transcriber worked in vertical columns so that they could never see the entire record of an individual whose record would be closed when the Register was published online.

[Merry]

This gives a clue as to how the records on a page could get all muddled up:
https://blog.findmypast.co.uk/watch-1436591498.html
Owing to privacy reasons, rather than dealing with horizontal rows of text each transcriber worked in vertical columns so that they could never see the entire record of an individual whose record would be closed when the Register was published online.

Cripes! That's what must have gone wrong with my grandparents household.

I wonder if they did spot checks for people born before 1915 to see that their record matched up along the horizontal line?

[kiterunner]

Cripes! That's what must have gone wrong with my grandparents household.

I wonder if they did spot checks for people born before 1915 to see that their record matched up along the horizontal line?

You would hope so, wouldn't you?

[Margaret in Burton]

How daft is that. As if after transcribing loads of records they would remember any of it.