Just when you think most of Ancestry's errors have been corrected...

[Phoenix]

I was checking a typed list of entries for the Durrant family in Merstham. It was taken from a printed transcript of the register.


I was looking for the marriage of William Relf to Elizabeth Argles Durrant in 1783. Here it is:



https://www.ancestry.co.uk/discoveryui-content/view/2664154:4779?_phsrc=nUX8360&_phstart=successSource&gsln=relf&ml_rpos=7&queryId=e76c818620e1bff989acfc44b1e36ec0


They are transcribed as
Amy Bat??sl?? and

Elizabeth ??Ant :d

[kiterunner]

The ?? is what transcribers are told to put for any number of illegible letters.

[kiterunner]

Also your link took me to a different Relf marriage. This is the link to the one that you were talking about:
https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/4779/images/40761_312052-00386?usePUB=true&_phsrc=UMN94434&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=3010694

[kiterunner]

The transcriber must have been looking at where it said Surry Batchelor instead of at William's name.

[Phoenix]

Yes, the transcriber was obviously looking at the line below for William, and an idle glance at Elizabeth might suggest her surname was Clement. What surprises me is that nobody has put in a correction. I was there at the formal launch of Surrey registers, which happened years ago.

The entry above is even more baffling. I think the surname is Kerell or a variant thereof, probably from Sussex, but I cannot find Daniel anywhere else