Author Topic: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?  (Read 86885 times)

Offline jess5athome

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #18 on: Thursday 24 March 16 11:07 GMT (UK) »
My ancestor whose name was Fred- was transcribed as FROG  ;D


He wasn't a "Riveter" by trade was he?  ;D ........... Sorry, couldn't resist it  :-[

I'd not have seen it but would have looked at the whole page then for any clues.

Frank.
Ramsey Ridsdale Ridgway Kempen Knight Harrison Denby Sisson Graney Spilsbury Wain Hebden Abbott Skinn ........ Yorkshire (Doncaster Goole Snaith Thorne area)Lincolnshire Nottinghamshire The Netherlands

Offline Rosinish

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #19 on: Thursday 24 March 16 12:36 GMT (UK) »
One day soon they will get computers to perform transcribing.  They will probably be more accurate than human transcribers.

I believe this already happens.

Annie
South Uist, Inverness-shire, Scotland:- Bowie, Campbell, Cumming, Currie

Ireland:- Cullen, Flannigan (Derry), Donahoe/Donaghue (variants) (Cork), McCrate (Tipperary), Mellon, Tol(l)and (Donegal & Tyrone)

Newcastle-on-Tyne/Durham (Northumberland):- Harrison, Jude, Kemp, Lunn, Mellon, Robson, Stirling

Kettering, Northampton:- MacKinnon

Canada:- Callaghan, Cumming, MacPhee

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Offline jbml

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #20 on: Sunday 27 March 16 23:01 BST (UK) »
I looked at it for a while ... it's difficult to say how I would have construed it, given that I already KNEW it was "Hector".

But ... just looking at that first letter, there is one thing which is ABUNDANTLY obvious ... and that it that it has two parallel upright strokes, not one.

I know of only three English capital letters with two parallel upright strokes: H, N and M

Once you have eliminated those that it cannot be ... N and M ... then the solution that it must be an H with the bar raised a little way does seem pretty obvious.

With the benefit of hindsight.

As for "ee" or "ec" ... well, the letters are differently formed, so they are not the same letter.

l or t? Well, it it doesn't have a cross-bar, then the following letter has a dot over it. But the following letter is neither an i nor a j, so the upright letter in the middle of the word its a t not an l.

Are we nearly there yet?

(As I say though ... all this IS starting out KNOWING it is Hector ... which makes it easy to see. Not so sure I would have got there without knowing it in advance ... and that's what makes transcription such an exacting task.)
All identified names up to and including my great x5 grandparents: Abbot Andrews Baker Blenc(h)ow Brothers Burrows Chambers Clifton Cornwell Escott Fisher Foster Frost Giddins Groom Hardwick Harris Hart Hayho(e) Herman Holcomb(e) Holmes Hurley King-Spooner Martindale Mason Mitchell Murphy Neves Oakey Packman Palmer Peabody Pearce Pettit(t) Piper Pottenger Pound Purkis Rackliff(e) Richardson Scotford Sherman Sinden Snear Southam Spooner Stephenson Varing Weatherley Webb Whitney Wiles Wright

Offline marcie dean

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #21 on: Monday 28 March 16 01:55 BST (UK) »
My ancestor whose name was Fred- was transcribed as FROG  ;D


He wasn't a "Riveter" by trade was he?  ;D ........... Sorry, couldn't resist it  :-[

I'd not have seen it but would have looked at the whole page then for any clues.he wasnt a purl and plain knitter, a ribber, ribbit ribbit, i couldnt hekp it either :o ??? ::)

Frank.
Scotlandorkney flett bell, strickland laird traillcalqahoun.
Lanark/Argyll/Renfrew/Ayr:Smith, Steele,Kirkwood,Hamilton,May,orO'mayscott and anderso, craig , forbes taggart Kirkwood, milloy and steel apart ftom others which are numerous, graham mcilroy. stewart.brown battonisle of sku rothsay etc.
 searl rogers sutherland
Edinburgh/Aberdeen:portsea marsh,brownwhittcomb and others. to numerous to mentionweymouth frank.  Laidlaw,Brown,Dean//Charles/Hall/Slight/Johnston belgium loquet


Offline MagicMirror

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #22 on: Thursday 07 April 16 19:04 BST (UK) »
Someone named "God Amen" apparently left a number of Wills over the years.  ;D




Offline hookleg

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #23 on: Friday 13 May 16 14:27 BST (UK) »
I have corrected hundreds of names, which I appreciate can be difficult to make out. What does annoy me a bit is the mis-transcription of village names. Surely people who are doing this have access to a list of parishes, at least for the county they are transcribing?
Burt, Cockrill, Craske, Debenham, Double, Grimwade, Grimwood, Hilder, Mayhew, Ray. All from  West Suffolk around the Bury St. Edmunds area.
Simpson, Pittendreigh, Arthur.   Aberdeenshire

Offline Beeonthebay

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #24 on: Friday 13 May 16 15:06 BST (UK) »
I have corrected hundreds of names, which I appreciate can be difficult to make out. What does annoy me a bit is the mis-transcription of village names. Surely people who are doing this have access to a list of parishes, at least for the county they are transcribing?

I corrected one the other day where the place name was correct but it was most definitely in the wrong county.  I did google it just to make sure and yep.
Williams, Owens, Pritchard, Povall, Banks, Brown.

Offline jaybelnz

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #25 on: Friday 13 May 16 23:16 BST (UK) »
One day soon they will get computers to perform transcribing.  They will probably be more accurate than human transcribers.

I believe this already happens.

Annie

I don't know why it is, but numerous "electronic transcriptions" I have tried to read on say, old newspaper records on Trove,  FindMyPast etc, can be difficult to understand, but fortunately there is also an image of the actual page!
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Offline NooshieW

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Re: The worst Ancestry transcription ever?
« Reply #26 on: Saturday 14 May 16 01:09 BST (UK) »
I had the surname West thranscribed as Resh, took ages to find that one. But the worst by far was
Mary Hunter, that had been transcribed as Stumbles , took years to unravel it, we had to pull the original documents and then we could see it wasn't Stumbles at all ,but Hunter, haven't got a clue how they could have got that so wrong.
Devon,Cornwall and Somerset
West,Horne,Andrews,Melluish and Denniford