If you find something wrong in the indexes - Genealogists' Forum

JBee · #1 07-02-13, 16:06

who do you ask to correct it.

Have found the marriage in March qtr 1912 but the freebdm image says 1872.

Have looked at both ancestry and freebdm who both have it for 1872. I know it's mine because the lady was married previously in 1903 and widowed and gives both her maiden and married name.

On ancestry where it says about adding a correction - there is nothing about indicating the year being wrong.

Uncle John · #2 07-02-13, 16:21

Ancestry's FreeBMD (i.e. pre-1912?) BMD info is taken verbatim from FreeBMD and so there is no provision to correct it.

FreeBMD will only accept corrections if the GRO index has been transcribed incorrectly. If the GRO index is wrong and FreeBMD have reproduced what it says in the index, the best you can do is add a Postem (comment). I had to do that when one of my surnames was indexed by the GRO with an S instead of an L.

Merry · #3 07-02-13, 16:25

If you look at FreeBMD is it one of the entries that doesn't have the page attached via the 'spectacles'?

JBee · #4 07-02-13, 17:05

Oops - Thanks Merry & UJ just checked again and found it's correct on freebdm

sure I had a look and couldn't find it earlier.

However it's still wrong on ancestry and there's no image available - so not surprised.

the reference seems to be ok too - just the year's out.

kiterunner · #5 07-02-13, 17:17

If the version on ancestry originally came (via FreeBMD) from a transcriber who was doing a one-name study (in which case it would be one of those entries not linked to a page image) it could be that the transcriber misread the year that s/he had written down and that is how it got the wrong year. If it is now correct on FreeBMD, it should eventually get through to ancestry as well since they regularly replace their copy of the FreeBMD database with the latest one.

JBee · #6 07-02-13, 18:29

Thanks Kite - I didn't know the process of how it's put up on ancestry - looks like the year was mistranscribed 1872 instead of 1912.

I've put a comment on record of the 4 people involved - so hopefully if researchers don't try and search for a marriage in a short time frame it should come up. Hopefully ancestry will update pretty soon.

Thanks