Ancestry - member-submitted corrections and comments

[LizzieL]

I have often noticed member-submitted corrections where the transcriber has made an error in spelling a name or place or misinterpreted an age, which are left as an addition to the original transcription. But today I was looking at the transcription of a 1841 census record which had an exact place of birth for the individual. i was surprised to say the least until I noticed the words were slightly italicised and in dark blue and black. If I had been looking at it on my phone instead of laptop, I doubt if I would have seen the difference. Does anyone in the Ancestry organisation check what members are adding?
I found same family in 1851 and the comment added in 1841 proved to be correct and linked a Hampshire baptism I had found earlier with a family who had moved to another county where there was another the group of families with the same unusual surname. So in this case the user comment has been extremely helpful to me and corted the two lines.
But what if it had been completely wrong, there's enough scope for wild goose chases with original records without "helpful" additions.

As an aside, the record I was looking at in 1851 had a married couple in their 70s, their married son of 31, then his wife age 30. Instead of the relation ship of the son's wife to Head of Household being "daughter in law" it said "wife-to-last" (meaning presumably last named).
I am surprised the enumerator didn't translate this into d-i-l, unless there is a subtle difference.

[Pheno]

I very much like the Ancestry system whereby you can correct a record when looking at it and put your own interpretation on it, maybe from following the family over time.  The fact that after a while the alternatives also come up in searches is good too.  You can even contact the person(s) making the correction to follow through.

Much better than FindMyPast in my opinion where you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get a correction submitted.

Pheno

[LizzieL]

Good as long at they are correct.
Like postems on FreeBMD. I saw one recently for a completely unrelated person that someone had erroneously linked to one of OHs ancestors. Clearyt the person posting had not got the birth cert or even looked the individual up on GRO  index to find mother's maiden name was not what they stated it was. I added a correction, but the incorrect postem comes up first as it was added earlier

[Romilly]

I put in a correction on the 1911 Census for my Grandparents when that Census first came out.
My correction can still be seen as a note, but Ancestry has never corrected the record.

Romilly.

[PaulineJ]

Ancestry doesn't accept corrections; it never has done.
It records 'alternatives'

[Romilly]

Well, it hasn’t recorded my note as an alternative, - it’s just been ignored!

Romilly.

[HughC]

As Lizzie says, good as long as they're correct.
Unfortunately we're up against the US-American way of doing genealogical research:
"Oh look, there's a John Smith.  He must be the one I'm missing."

[suey]

As Lizzie says, good as long as they're correct.
Unfortunately we're up against the US-American way of doing genealogical research:
"Oh look, there's a John Smith.  He must be the one I'm missing."

So true, someone has purloined one of my husbands ancestors and sent him to Australia. They have a wonderful tree all built on the wrong man, I have found their man quite easily and so could they if they looked properly at the ‘hints’ and followed the census records.