Beware Ancestry Web site unreliable

[MonicaL]

  I have been led to believe that Ancestry's transcriptions were the result of photo imageing software used by Ancestry rather than "real people" transcribing. Which in my head explained all the very many messy transcriptions, too obviously without any sense.

Was I wrong to think that all these years?!

Monica

[Stoorie17]

Monica
As far as I know you are correct, on another forum it has been mentioned often that they use OCR, which is highly problematic in its interpretation of what it reads.
Stewie

[MonicaL]

Thanks Stewie  That was my understanding.

Monica

[Nick29]

Monica
As far as I know you are correct, on another forum it has been mentioned often that they use OCR, which is highly problematic in its interpretation of what it reads.
Stewie

They don't use OCR on handwritten text - only printed text, and even then it's unreliable.  Anyone who thinks transcription of records is easy should become an Ancestry World Archives Project volunteer keyer.  Even some typewritten records are hard to read, either because the typewriter was dirty, or the photographing of the record was badly exposed, or a combination of both.  Handwriting can be a nightmare.

On Ancestry there is a facility for suggesting transcription errors, which will be entered into the database for searches in the future.

[LizzieW]

I don't think transcription explains a missing ancestor over many census.  All the census can't have been as badly written as Tati's example.

Lizzie

[Nick29]

It can in cases of surnames that are often mis-read (i.e. they look like more common names).  My grandmother's name was Hole, which was often as not mis-transcribed as Hale.  It's quite easy to look at a record and wonder why transcribers always got it wrong, but you are looking for the name (you already know it), but transcribers aren't.

[carol8353]

I'd heard that they sent some of the census transcribing to be done in countries where English is not even their first language.So they literally did type what they thought they saw.And not every well at that 

Carol

[patrexjax]

Hello all, My Grandfather's surname was "KING" but had been mis-transcribed as "HING."  I had never found him in 1871 but some keen eyed Rootschatters did!!!  Hooray for Rootschatters!    Pat

[Nick29]

What happens now on new Ancestry projects is that each piece of paper is transcribed independently by two volunteer keyers.  Their results are then sent to an arbitrator, who will decide which is right, if the transcriptions are different.  If a keyer is found to be wrong, that knocks off a point from their accuracy rating.  Keyers with high accuracy scores are invited to become arbitrators.  So, if you see what you think you have seen a mistake in the latest Ancestry offerings, that mistake has been made by at least two people, if not three.  And it does happen - I was looking at a new release of postcards on Ancestry recently, and I noticed one or two "howlers".