Burial Records

[kenw55]

How many records are wrong on Ancestry , Findmypast and Family Search ?
Let me explain.

In my tree on Ancestry I have Elizabeth Sarah Flux B. 1849 Newport Isle of Wight .
She Married Richard Bird Cheverton ( B 1845 Shanklin Isle of Wight ) in 1870 at St Thomas Ryde Isle of Wight .

As soon as I entered the Marriage Ancestry gave me a Death for Elizabeth Sarah in 1901 on Isle of Wight ( correct ) and a Burial record for her
1 May 1901 in LANCASHIRE .

I had similar records offered for Richard Bird Cheverton in 1933 .

The Burials in Lancashire did not look right so I looked on Findmypast and they had exactly the same .

I wrote to Ancestry and got no reply ( no change there ) and I wrote to Findmypast , they replied ,

“ Unfortunately as this data is licensed from Family Search we are not at liberty to make an amendment to the records without their agreement and this is the reason there is no facility to report an error. “

I then wrote to Family Search and they replied ,

“ We understand there are transcribed errors in the results from film number 1470881. The record in question shows a system origin of 'England-EASy'. This is one*of the legacy collections and was created by volunteer indexes prior to our current arbitration procedures. As a consequence, the indexed records contain numerous errors. *In the future the original records will be available online and will possibly be indexed again, therefore we are not making corrections at this time. “

So as this batch of Burials contains 5,495 wrongly transcribed as Lancashire instead of Hampshire one has to wonder how many more are wrong .
Newport Record Office have supplied me with the correct location of Richard Bird Cheverton and his Wife Elizabeth Sarah , which is Fairlee Road Cemetery Newport Isle of Wight .

Ken

[AntonyM]

Despite big improvements, FamilySearch still contains a lot of information of very questionable value - these problems are then compounded by other sites (like Ancestry & FMP ) copying the information into their systems

The lesson is that as with all research, unless you are looking at an original source document, it is essential to work out where/how the information has been obtained before accepting it as reliable.

[Olde Crone Holden]

When I was very new to research and long before the internet, an old chap in the local archives office said to me "As soon as man picks up a pen there is an opportunity for error" and I have never forgotten that lesson.

As Anthony says - always find the original source document before you try to establish the accuracy of what you have found. Whilst I am EXTREMELY grateful to familysearch, it has to be said that they danced to their own tune at one time. (And to be fair, their information-gathering has a different purpose from ours).

OC

[Richard in Perth]

Hi Ken

Don't forget the Isle of Wight Family History Society website - this should be your first port of call for any IOW people. Your Chevertons are listed in their monumental inscriptions index:

http://www.isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk/church_burials/results3_2.php?id=5434

http://www.isle-of-wight-fhs.co.uk/church_burials/results3_2.php?id=5466

cheers,
Richard

[kenw55]

I have been a member of IOWFHS since 2008 .

My reason for posting the above was to possibly warn others to not just accept the records on Family Search Etc as correct.

There are a lot of trees on Ancestry that have attached those Lancashire Burial records with out thinking . And as I said how many more are wrong .

Ken

[JBee]

The other thing is that a computerised document can be changed at the flick of a button leaving no trace - with a written document you can see immediately when something has been doctored.