My Ancestors beta

Great tool Peter, whilst quite surprised and disappointed at the mistakes I've made, this has allowed me to make corrections.
Mostly I used the wrong set of numbers on some 1911 entries. But whilst revisiting the 1911 transcriptions, I have come across some awful transcriber errors. I think that I was initially only interested in the images of the original census forms, which of course we use to enter data on our Lost Cousins pages.

 

Correcting errors gained me a cousin match, so thanks for that. Unfortunately it takes the score to only three, and two of those date back to 2011. Slim pickings for listing more than 800 ancestors. Errors fell into two categories: mistyping and misreading. The former were mainly fat-finger clumsiness on the 1911 census. The other came from confusion over instructions. The 1841 transcripts, for instance, do not always match Peter's advice on folio/page numbers. The 1940 US census was not part of the exercise but that caused me great confusion when it came out as Peter asks for the "NARA roll number". It took some time to realise that transcripts call this the "Affiliate Film Number".

 

True for the one that's still visible on my browser - I'll bear that in mind.

 

Just a comment in case it helps someone else - the link obviously doesn't work on the 1881 if the folio number is followed by 'a', which we are instructed to omit, probably so a match can be made.

 

A great idea Peter. I've just been through my entries for 1841 and 1911. Found a few errors of mine. However I found even more transcription errors which I have taken the opportunity to correct.

 

Using the comments from this forum discussion, I did post a suggestion on the FMP feedback forum requesting the ability to display the search results in the same order as the original document. I have just received a reply saying . . .
"This appears to be a bug, we've passed it on to our team and they'll repair it as soon as they can."
Let's hope that it doesn't take long.

 

Perhaps they are calling it a bug because the order was supposed to be like the original document. I am not going to argue. As a bug, it is likely to be 'fixed' sooner than if it were a suggested improvement needing much support indicated from other users.

 

I have been reading all the posts regarding this new addition to the Lost Cousins site and wondered if I should check my "My Ancestors" list for errors. I'm very careful when I add to my list, surely I couldn't have made any mistakes........ WRONG !!! Thank you Peter, what a useful addition, I had heaps wrong, mainly in the 1911 census where I had used the RG78PN number instead of the RG14PN number Still no more matches but at least I have a better chance now.

 

Me too Heather, 1911,otherwise two typos 1841.

 

Really useful tool Peter - picked up a couple of typos & a few ref errors almost all being folio numbers

 

Peter - just noticed - the menu box on the "beta" My Ancestors page appears to have lost format in my browser (Firefox 32) - the Edit Household is split and out of alignment.

 

Phew! Finally finished checking all the census references I've entered for "My Ancestors". It's taken me a while but would have taken much longer without this checking tool, so I agree it's really useful. I did find an error in one 1841 reference - it's one that came originally from an index and I spotted it as being incorrect a while back and changed in my records, but didn't think to change it at Lost Cousins.

Another useful asset of the tool is, that in the process of checking, I noticed quite a few transcription errors at FMP which I was able to report.

 

Having problems using the arrow check today. Response to all attempts is: "Object moved to . " [it includes that dot]. Something wrong with my setup? It's worked OK up till now.

 

Thanks. Sorted. Wonder why it has never impacted before?