1939 Register errors - findmypast

[Olde Crone]

Tut, Glen, you don't have to use it if you object to the cost!

As for mistranscriptions, let me take you by the hand and lead you through Ancestry.....

OC

[kiterunner]

The trouble is, FMP keep saying their transcribers on this project had an accuracy rate of 98.5%, and use that as a justification of the high price. Though looking at their information about the Register on their site, they say "Our quality assurance process dictates an accuracy rate in readable documents of over 98%, and so meticulous work has been done to ensure that this release is the best it can possibly be for our users."

So if a high proportion of the 1939 Register wasn't classed as "readable", I suppose that would lead to a low accuracy rate.

[Glen TK]

Originally Posted by kiterunner

The trouble is, FMP keep saying their transcribers on this project had an accuracy rate of 98.5%, and use that as a justification of the high price. Though looking at their information about the Register on their site, they say "Our quality assurance process dictates an accuracy rate in readable documents of over 98%, and so meticulous work has been done to ensure that this release is the best it can possibly be for our users."

So if a high proportion of the 1939 Register wasn't classed as "readable", I suppose that would lead to a low accuracy rate.

I'll hold my hands up and say I have viewed a household with just 3 people in it, I was pretty sure it was mis transcribed and yup, it was. Someone has assumed that Goulson and Toulson in a household are all Goulson family. I'm at a loss with a nearby household of Toulson family however, the matching forenames and dob from the searches are transcribed as a family by the surname of Andrews, so Toulson and Andrews are close variants then. I'll be sure to check the bmd and census to round up a few missing entries with the variant. Maybe the entire 2% of errors are exclusive to my tree?

[peppie]

has anyone queried who they outsourced the transcriptions to?

*la la la lal la la la la ala lala *

[Glen TK]

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

Tut, Glen, you don't have to use it if you object to the cost!

As for mistranscriptions, let me take you by the hand and lead you through Ancestry.....

OC

I think it's extortionate to be honest OC but just to prove to myself how bad it is I did view a household. I predicted the error before viewing, if the accuracy of transcriptions are half as accurate as my prediction then it might be a valid dataset.

[Olde Crone]

Glen

I honestly don't think the cost is any more extortionate than any other record we buy in pursuit of our hobby.

FMP paid £20 million for this dataset, then had to transcribe it and put it online, which can't have been cheap even if they did use rubbish transcribers. I never expect any transcriptions to be particularly accurate because it is very often difficult to interpret someone else's handwriting. And to be fair, you could hardly expect FMP or anyone else really, to say "Here it is, we've made a mess of the transcriptions".

I do understand how frustrating it is when you see expensive credits vanishing without any concrete result - I wasted £££££ on SP looking at wrong census records for instance.

I'm not sticking up for FMP. I'm just resigned to the fact that these things cost money and FMP exists to make a profit, nothing else. If we want the goods, we have to pay the price and thus encourage them to purchase other data sets which might solve a mystery for someone.

OC

[James18]

Originally Posted by Olde Crone

I do understand how frustrating it is when you see expensive credits vanishing without any concrete result - I wasted £££££ on SP looking at wrong census records for instance.

I honestly don't understand how it is possible to do Scottish genealogy unless you already know exactly who you're looking for. It's a pure guessing game, and works out incredibly expensive -- especially when, once you run out of names you already knew about, you start getting far more misses than hits.

I really wish Scottish and Irish BMD records were up on Ancestry, so I could actually start searching properly. Unless I can get in touch with some of my relatives by sheer chance (as I don't know who some of the living ones even are) I'll probably never be able to complete my Irish-Scottish family trees.

[ElizabethHerts]

Haha! I have found my grandfather away from home. He was at Harrogate. He worked for the Air Ministry in London and they sent him to visit aircraft firms etc.

His surname of "Purkis" has been transcribed as "Perkins".

I know it's him as his forenames are given correctly as "Cecil H J" and his dob is OK.

[Macbev]

Originally Posted by James18

I honestly don't understand how it is possible to do Scottish genealogy unless you already know exactly who you're looking for. It's a pure guessing game, and works out incredibly expensive -- especially when, once you run out of names you already knew about, you start getting far more misses than hits.

I really wish Scottish and Irish BMD records were up on Ancestry, so I could actually start searching properly. Unless I can get in touch with some of my relatives by sheer chance (as I don't know who some of the living ones even are) I'll probably never be able to complete my Irish-Scottish family trees.

Guess I was lucky to begin my search in pre-Scotland's People Ancestry days, when I used the IGI to track down the births of my Scots and was able to order in films of the OPRs to get the images at minimal expense.

Then I got extra lucky and was found online by a distantly related person researching the same family (this was about the time email was invented ) who not only lived in the home territory in Scotland but who was willing to look for other branches during her annual foray into Edinburgh.

I was able to wrap up most of OH's family about the time the Ancestry mistranscriptions became available. My distant rellie sends me SP vouchers as Christmas pressies, so I have been able to ice the cake with the fine details.

The Irish side was another matter...but the recently released RC Parish records have helped a good deal.

[ElizabethHerts]

Re. Scotland's People - all I have for my Scottish ancestors (one quarter of my tree) are the bare bones. If I'm lucky a dob, marriage and burial. On my English branches I have been able to view lots of PRs, find out lots of extra facts through the National Archives' Discovery database or the county record offices, find countless wills, etc. On my Scottish side I have none of the extra details. The Scottish authorities don't seem to have the information out there in an accessible manner.

I'm sure there is more available - I just wish it was easier to access.

In the early days I too wasted so much money trying to make a start. I didn't have any information apart from a couple of (common) names and the dob of my grandmother.