Same search but different answers on SP and Ancestry

[Hugo]

I have just run the same search of the 1841 Census (Scotland) on SP and Ancestry and got different answers.

The search was Dun??h*

SP gave 9 hits and Ancestry gave 5!

The Ancestry surnames are included in SP but there is disagreement on one first name - SP gives a Susan and a Jean while Ancestry gives two Susan's.

The family is not related so my interest in the anomaly is mainly curiosity.

Anyone else found a similar mismatch between SP and Ancestry?

Hugo

PS I have also posted the above on SP.

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

The Ancestry transcriptions of the Scottish censues are dreadful really, so I would be surprised if you ever found matching transcripts!!

[Uncle John]

There are merits and quirks in both. SP won't let you search without a surname, which is a problem if they have mistranscribed it. And Ancestry does show you the whole household (and in one recent case, all of next door as well!). I found a lot of mistranscriptions on Ancestry at first, but recently I have been more lucky.

[Olde Crone Holden]

UJ

That's because I spend my every waking minute submitting corrections to Ancestry, lol!

OC

[KiteRunner]

PS I have also posted the above on SP.

Ooh, has Scotland's People started up their discussion forum again? It used to be pretty useful but they got rid of it a few years ago.

I believe that there is a possibility of the Scottish government giving licences to other sites apart from SP to provide census images in the future, so maybe one day ancestry will actually have the images as well as their not-very-good transcriptions. In the meantime, I would believe SP's transcription over ancestry's for most entries.

[Uncle John]

I had a fairly dismissive response recently from brightsolid when I politely suggested that I couldn't find someone on SP because their surname had been mistranscribed. I had found the family on Ancestry but I really needed to see the image.

[KiteRunner]

Oh, there definitely are a few surname mistranscriptions on SP. Perhaps more likely when the surname isn't of Scottish origin? Sometimes if you know they are there because you found them on ancestry, a search using wildcards or Soundex on SP will find them, or you have to search for someone else on the same page.

Another problem with searching the censuses on SP is that you can't search on birthplace so if your people moved from their birthplace and have a common name, you have no way of knowing which is them.

[Hugo]

KiteRunner,
"Ooh, has Scotland's People started up their discussion forum again? It used to be pretty useful but they got rid of it a few years ago. "

Another of my errors! I should have said TalkingScot.

Hugo

[KiteRunner]

Oh, right, I haven't come across that one. I'll have to have a look at it, it sounds interesting, thanks.