FreeBMD - Adding Postems

Far be it for us to stop you contacting anyone, if you feel it's a useful idea then submit it to them.

However, I did transcribe pages there for quite a long time, and you can appreciate that there is a catch 22 with what you suggest and their current ethos. They transcribe purely what they can see on the images. If the names are wrong in the entry because you know the family history, they won't change (rightly so) because they're typing what was entered at the time. This is the same for Ancestry and FindMyPast. However, with Ancestry you can add user comments, which is great and they appear in searches. So, maybe FreeBMD will add it, but they might just say its not on the cards....

 

However Tim, what Emma is suggesting is that when you see an index of 4 individuals you know that male A married female C or D, and that male B married female C or D but you can never be sure which it is unless you have subsequently traced the family and proved which male married which female. Now from what I understand of Emma's post she is suggesting that adding a note to a marriage record saying male A married female D and male B married female C would be a great help to future researchers.

That is extra information and not a correction of anything on the original records.

 

I'd suggest yes its worth a mention. Its not an issue in Scottish records as we have the full images of the registers rather than just an index, thus I've not had much experience with how annoying the problem can be. However it sounds like a really good idea.

 

I realise completely what Emma was suggesting, and often thought about it myself. It will be interesting to see what their reply is.

I know. It would also be useful if they mentioned who the kids were.
If someone you don't know adds who they believe is the spouse, will you actually believe it and stop doing your own research?

 

You're right, it would be cheering to have your own work confirmed. Maybe they could have it as a little Hint icon? So if you get stuck, you could press it and then see what over people think?

I've edited your post slightly, when you use the reply feature (which is what you should do to keep continuity), you need to keep everything that's in between the square brackets [ ] at the start of the post and at the end of the post.

 

Perhaps I'm too tired and should go to bed - but who is stopping anyone adding postem notes to FreeBMD? The facility is there. You just have to use it. Adding a note when you know who the marriage partner is is a good idea but not something I do. On the other hand I always send in corrections when I find transcription errors. I transcribed for FreeBMD for a time but stopped because at the time they insisted on you transcribing from their poor images when I had access to much better ones and it seemed a poor use of time. I think they changed policy later.
From their site: A Postem is a note left by someone about this record - the content of the postem is determined by the person who left it. FreeBMD can offer no assurance about the postem and will not enter into correspondence about it.

 

I don't think anyone is saying that. The discussion was around whether it was useful to add a partner's name in the Postem field.
Unfortunately, the discussion has gone off topic which was originally to discuss search tips whilst using FreeBMD.

 

FreeBMD are very stringent about changes to their transcriptions - they have the same policy as findmypast. But there are no restrictions on postems, indeed they make the point that they aren't going to be read by any of the project team.

And to get this discussion back on topic, searching postems is a tip!

 

When the entry is wrong, I look it up and post a correction. Often you can see it on the FreeBMD scans now as they've better scans than when they started. I transcribed for awhile and you weren't allowed to transcribe from any other image than the one they provided even if you had access to a clearer one, so I gave up as it was far too frustrating. They ended up changing their policy - and having better scans.