FindMyPast transcriptions - grumpy rant

[suey]

Not only in Scotland. This is a transcription of my 2xGtGf living in Bridge Street, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.

Edmund Jones / Head / Married / Male / 43 / 1818 / Journeyer Plasterer / Overton, Hampshire, England.

Should be Flintshire, Overton.

This wasted 6 months of searching effort.

These mistakes come up time and again. You know it’s short for Flintshire but first glance looks very like Hants… 

[tillypeg]

Last week I had one on FindMyPast for someone born in Herefordshire, when I looked it was clearly Hertfordshire but again, to be fair, it was curly writing.

My 'grumpy rant' is for North Yorkshire. The parish of Ruswarp covers parts of Whitby and anyone unfamiliar with the town of Whitby will assume that the person lives in the much smaller village of Ruswarp, upstream from Whitby itself.  However, it is easy enough to check on Google Maps where a particular street is and find that it is in the town of Whitby.

[Andy J2022]

Sadly I think you are being unrealistic if you think that transcribers have the time or motivation to check things they are not sure about on Google. Transcribers aren't expected to have local knowledge and they are frequently told to just write what they see. At best they may add a note which helps clarify, for example by noting that some of the writing was in a different hand or clearly altered/added at a different time etc.
This is the reason why we, as family historians, should always strive to look at the original source document and only use transcriptions as a signpost towards that goal.

[BumbleB]

Sadly I think you are being unrealistic if you think that transcribers have the time or motivation to check things they are not sure about on Google. Transcribers aren't expected to have local knowledge and they are frequently told to just write what they see. At best they may add a note which helps clarify, for example by noting that some of the writing was in a different hand or clearly altered/added at a different time etc.
This is the reason why we, as family historians, should always strive to look at the original source document and only use transcriptions as a signpost towards that goal.

Well said! 

[tillypeg]

Andy J2022 - No, I am not criticising the transcribers at all, I was merely agreeing with Forfarian, the OP, when he commented "because they mangle the names of parishes/districts".  Those 'mistakes' are surely down to the wording of the heading on the census page done by the compilers and how that has been shown in the transcriptions done by FindMyPast/Ancestry, not the fault of the transcribers doing the actual entries. 

I am fully aware of the difficulties facing a transcriber.  I did not mean that the transcriber should be Googling to find the answers, that is for the family historian to undertake when doing their own research.

[Forfarian]

Transcribers aren't expected to have local knowledge and they are frequently told to just write what they see.

Quite.

The problems arise mostly when the transcriptions contain things that are not on the original document. Like adding 'Marnoch' to 'Mortlach' or recording 'Lanark' instead of 'Glasgow'.