Digital collections & missing registers

It was good to see this issue raised in the latest newsletter, as it's something I've been querying and reporting for many years now - to almost no effect, I might add.

As well as fully or partly missing registers, there are also occasions when the transcriptions are missing or incomplete, though this is rarely made clear in the collection details.

People have come to expect that they can research their ancestry with simple online searches, and missing registers and transcriptions can all too easily lead unsuspecting researchers into following up the wrong family.

And, of course, we are paying subscriptions to the various sites with the expectation that their advertised collections are as complete as they can be.

 

I can't say that I have much success from contacting the relevant record office. Sometimes I have been told there is nothing they can do, other times there has been concern but it hasn't changed anything, and I don't know if someone had tried to take the necessary action or if it was simply overlooked as low priority.

The only time I can remember actually achieving anything by approaching an archives office did not concern digitised images but a transcript supplied by TNA to FMP. But even that took a fair amount of time trying to identify the relevant person to contact at TNA, and then speaking to that person on the phone, before I was finally able to get someone to understand the issue and address it. That person proved to be very helpful and I think it was all sorted within a week.

I also once had some success with FamilySearch over a mix-up between two different parishes for which they had digitised images, but only after a lengthy email correspondence as I endeavoured to get someone to understand what I was saying. I got there in the end and was thankful that emailing allows you time to take lots of deep breaths before replying!

 

I first encountered this problem when searching for my great-great-grandfather, William Hastings' death record at the Maryland Archives. Records are digitized, but not indexed, but they are filmed alphabetically. As I searched through page by page, the records skipped from Ham... to Heb... They had missed digitizing one whole stack of certificates, probably 100. I called it to their attention by email, and received a reply that they would look into it and correct the problem. A year later I checked back, and it had not been corrected. It is not just commercial sites that have this problem.

I am currently focusing on research in Norfolk, on FMP. Because I have found their transcriptions have numerous errors, I never rely on the search function alone. Rather, once I have the baptism for one child in a family, I browse through the register(s) to make sure I have all children in the family, and cross-reference against census families. With marriages, if the marriage does not come up in a search, I browse the most likely parish register. So far, I have not discovered any registers missing from FMP's collection.

The other benefit to browsing. I had one marriage where I found banns but no marriage. Browsing the marriage register confirmed that no marriage took place, and browsing the baptismal register revealed a child born a year and a half after the banns was baptized under the mother's surname. (although he appeared on the census with the father's surname).

 

I've been trying for over three months to get FMP to explain why a whole page of the 1939 Register has been redacted. I'm pretty sure that an address I'm looking for is on that page, that it wasn't an institution of any kind and that at least some of the residents were born well over 100 years ago. I'd really like to be able to see that address, where I think I might find someone who has a fairly common surname and whose date of birth I need to stand any chance of finding them in other records. However, I would be happy if I could get an explanation of any kind, but I am just being told that the query has gone to the relevant team and they are investigating.

Is there any point in me asking TNA instead, or as well? I believe that the original documents are held by TNA, but I imagine that the redacting prior to publication was done by FMP?

 

That's true, but in this case the page is in the middle of a register and appears to cover the last few houses on one side of a street and the first few in another street.

 

If the redacting was done by FMP, have you had a look at that page in Ancestry?

 

Yes, I have looked at the 1939 Register on both FMP and Ancestry.

This has already been discussed at some length on another forum, however much of that discussion was about how and where to look for the missing household in 1939, so I'll omit all of that here - suffice it to say that ordering a certificate gave me a specific address to look for.

The address I am looking for is 116 Penrose Avenue, Blackpool CB.

The letter code is NCPY.

The odd and even house numbers are on opposite sides of the street.

If you find house number 124 (which is at the bottom of a page, with house numbers descending), the following one or two pages are all 'officially closed'.

There were originally two all 'officially closed' pages on both FMP and Ancestry, but since I raised the query with FMP, they appear to have removed the first all 'officially closed' page ... which MAY mean that they are investigating as they said they would, but I can't find out what is happening? What you can currently see on Ancestry is what was there on both sites earlier this year.

I've also looked at maps for the area and established that the houses were built sometime between 1931 and 1938.

 

I see your problem Sue, in Ancestry searching for just the address brings up nothing of interest but doing the same search on FMP brings up that address. Number 1 at that address is an Ann Cheddy (crossed out) and above the name Wilkinson, schedule 92, birth 17 October 1898 married, unpaid domestic duties, six people in household all others redacted, I hope this helps.

 

Wow, thank you Heather. However, please can you explain how you searched for and found the address, as I still cannot?

If I search for the name I can now find it, which wasn't possible previously. Clearly FMP have made changes in response to my query, after all, which is great, but I'm still puzzled!

Anyway, this resolves the mystery of where Ann Cheddy AKA Wilkinson and her children were in 1939. It's a pity that Mr Wilkinson, who was the father of her children, is not with them, though. I had hoped to discover his date of birth, so that I could identify him. Oh well, I'll have to put my thinking cap back on.

 

Hi Sue, yes I just brought up the Census, Land & Surveys search and entered 116 Penrose Avenue, Blackpool in the "optional keywords" box, nothing else in any of the other boxes and when the results are shown Ann is at the bottom of the 7 results. Good luck with your searching.

 

That's really interesting that this address shows up via a keyword search of Census, Lands & Surveys but it doesn't show up in an address search of the 1939 census. One to remember for future, thanks.

Likewise the house where I grew up was built in the 1930s. It was unoccupied in 1939 and is shown in the 1939 register as V (= Vacant, I assume). Most of the neighbouring houses were occupied though a few were vacant.

 

Well that's strange, but as Helen says it's something to keep in the toolbox!

I'll go back to FMP to let them know that the data has been found, but that it doesn't (yet ... they might still be working on it) show up in the 1939 Register address search. The other odd thing is that you can't browse from the image to the previous or following pages ... which in fact explains why it's not showing up in the address search. The page has been opened up but not put back where it was before? I'm not sure that's well expressed but I'll work on the wording before I email FMP.

I must say that I rarely use the category searches on FMP. I usually go straight to a specific record set with a question, or just put in a name and maybe a date or location and search everything, if I'm looking for inspiration. I'm more likely to use a category search on Ancestry. I tend to think that FMP is better at answering a particular question and Ancestry is better at giving answers to the questions you might have asked if you'd thought of them?

 

Yes, that's always worth bearing in mind, although in this case - now that we can see the one page that's been revealed - all of the houses do appear to be occupied.