Saturday, June 23, 2018

The Problems with Transcriptions

Sometimes transcriptions of documents are the only option available but they always leave me wondering how accurate they are.  These are four of the obvious problems I've found:
  1. Handwriting can be hard to read leaving room for several possibilities and interpretations.
  2. Information may be omitted.
  3. Information may be mis-recorded by the transcriber.
  4. A transcriber typing the record may make typographical errors.
You may have read my previous post about a missing marriage record sent by the U.K. GRO office which did not arrive at my home.  It is for the second marriage of my widowed third great-grandmother, Martha (Reay) Doyle, to Thomas Richardson.  After I contacted the GRO office they sent another and it arrived last Thursday.  I was thrilled to see it in my mail box.

And then I opened it and this is what I saw.  (You may have to click to enlarge.)


It is a transcription instead of an image of the original.  If all the information agreed with everything I've collected for Martha to date, I might not have been concerned but it doesn't.  It gives her father's name as "William Redy" when I anticipated it would say "William Reay."  I suspect there was some uncertainty about the handwritten third letter in the name and the transcriber decided it was a "d" instead of an "a".  But I'd like to see the original myself.

When I first began working on family history I ordered county birth records from the late 1800s for my grandparents' siblings.  When they arrived they were beautifully typed.  I didn't have a clue that they were not original records.  Now that I know the difference, I always prefer an original image.

I deliberated for a few days what to do about Martha's record and finally decided to contact the GRO again and ask if they could provide an image of the original document.  I don't know what the options are because they don't upload scans of marriage records the way they do birth and death records.  And I doubt they'll want to send a third record to me.

Just this week on her Facebook page, Elizabeth Shown Mills wrote about looking at and using transcriptions versus original documents.  She recommends originals.  And I know other researchers with more experience than me recommend using originals.  If a transcription is the only option available to you be sure to note you used a transcription in your genealogy program.

I began family history research at about the time online digital images were becoming available.  What did people do before there were photocopies, microfilm, and digital images?  They must have relied on transcriptions, always hoping for accuracy, no doubt.

What have your experiences been using transcriptions?  Did you later see an image of the original and find that it was different?

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2018, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission of the owner. 

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Links to this post:
Best of the Genea-Blogs - 17 to 23 June 2018 at Genea-Musings
Friday’s Family History Finds at Empty Branches on the Family Tree 
 

16 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, often the transcriptions are either incomplete or incorrect. I do hope you can convince the GRO to give you the original, handwritten record so you can judge for yourself what the names actually look like! Best of luck.

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    1. Thank you, Marian. I hope I can convince them, too! It's hard to communicate, though. They can send me an email but I have to use their message system, so I'm never corresponding with the same person.

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  2. Finding the originals to confirm transcriptions I have is on top of my to-do list these days. Many times I've found a complete line from the original is missing in the transcription. Good luck on getting a copy of the original.

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    1. I think original can sometimes clear up uncertainties if we used transcriptions to begin with, Cathy. I hope you find that to be true when you obtain the originals on your list. Thank you for the wish for good luck. I hope the GRO will be helpful.

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  3. Transcriptions miss the context of the document in relationship to the time and place. With a 4th GGfather, I would have missed that his sister marrried the same day and he and her groom held bonds for each other. It is about proving facts and more importantly proving relationships that only context will help support. Thanks for the discussion.

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    1. You're so right, Cary. Thanks for adding to the discussion!

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  4. I recently read a forum discussion where the participants were comparing the "marks" of people who couldn't write to sort out the various potential family members. Just because the certificate is signed with a mark doesn't mean that mark is not significant paritcularly if is constitantly signed the same way then perhaps it should more accurately discribed as signed with an identifying mark. This can be particularly helpful if the person married multiple times. Hope you manage to get an image of the original entry that you're after.

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    1. That's an interesting thought about marks, Sandra. It is not something I considered, probably because I never took the time to compare the marks. On the other hand, I've heard the the marks in county records books are often not those of the original "signer" but of the county clerks. Of course, if one found an original will, the mark would be that of the creator.

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  5. It's surprising what all can be missed by not consulting the original record. What may seem insignificant to one researcher can be a gold nugget to another.

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    1. You're so right, Marie. Sometimes the transcriptions are more like indexes than word-for-word transcriptions. And we want to look at every detail of an original record.

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  6. Thanks for the in-depth discussion of a genealogy caveat. Good for us beginners to know!

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  7. Many years ago when I first started researching, a church sent the baptismal record for my grandmother. It was typed and dated 1992. This past year I was able to obtain an image from the actual register. Some of the information is not the same. Always try for the original.

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    1. I can believe it, Lisa. What information was different? Do you think the transcriber made typographical errors, or looked at two different records and combined them, or was it some other kind of misinformation?

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  8. I hope you're able to get the original document from the GRO, Nancy. :)

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    1. Oh, I do too, Jana. I received an email today that said, "We are currently investigating your enquiry and you will receive a response in due course." Even if they could just snap a photo (a clear photo!) and send it, I would be thrilled.

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I appreciate your comments and look forward to reading what you have to say. Thanks for stopping by.

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