Limitations of Tithe Applotments Online

Thomas from Presence · 07-05-2015 6:37pm #1

When carrying out research online it's very easy to assume that everything uploaded and transcribed is reasonably accurate and, as researchers, we can fall into a safe bubble.

I think I've seen some commentary of the limitations of the Tithe Applotment archive on the NAI website being less than accurate. Personally I think there may be profound issues with it which means that we should dig a little deeper with things.

There is a surname index, by county, of the tithes and Griffith's in the reading room of the NAI. My own surname and paternal line are my major focus at the moment. It's an odd surname, Brunkard, this makes things easy (we're all related) and difficult (spelling).

In the index book it is noted that there are at least two instances of this name in Dublin, one in Balrothery West and the other in Nethercross (baronies) in both Griffiths and the tithes.

This is interesting because on the online version there are none. A relative is noted in a known location as "Burkard" and this was transcribed literally in the online version.

What is interesting is that in addition to this index book, Ancestry.com has a William Brunkard (correct spelling) in another part of north county Dublin too in Ballyhack, Killsallaghan which would correlate with the index in the NAI reading room.

It differs from this index by offering more precise information on location and a first name. The Ancestry entry also has a year - 1869! This is the year tithes were abolished and well within the time that my relatives were registering the deaths of relatives.

Anyway - the summary point here is that there seems to be three indexes in existence - the online transcription, the books in the NAI and Ancestry (which cites the NAI rolls) so at the very least we should take care with simply just searching the website.

My problem is more profound as I've manually gone through the scans online and cannot find anymore Brunkards in the scans. Other than browsing by location (the misspelled place names will give you an aching eye), I've changed the numbers in the url for each scan to see what else is up there. As it happens there's lots of further information on localities and inter COI-parish warfare over tithe entitlements.

I can only conclude that the tithe surveys are more nebulous than what's online or that some archivist has made a type-o in the NAI index while another in the employ of Ancestry has made a highly believable series of type os!

Any thoughts friends?

Hermy · 07-05-2015 6:55pm

These problems are widespread.

Portumna is incorrectly spelled Portunna in Ancestry's set of Irish civil indexes.
And in their collection Ireland, Select Catholic Birth and Baptism Registers, 1763-1912 the recto and verso pages of the scans don't match up.

Pelly should be an easy surname to research - and mostly it is, even where there are spelling variations - except where the GRO has mispelt it as Kelly!

While I understand that human error means organisations can never completely eradicate spelling errors my biggest gripe is that websites don't provide an effective comments section that would allow those of us who have spotted an error to flag it for others to see.

Thomas from Presence · 07-05-2015 6:59pm

Hermy wrote: »

These problems are widespread.

Portumna is incorrectly spelled Portunna in Ancestry's set of Irish civil indexes.
And in their collection Ireland, Select Catholic Birth and Baptism Registers, 1763-1912 the recto and verso pages of the scans don't match up.

Pelly should be an easy surname to research - and mostly it is, even where there are spelling variations - except where the GRO has mispelt it as Kelly!

While I understand that human error means organisations can never completely eradicate spelling errors my biggest gripe is that websites don't provide an effective comments section that would allow those of us who have spotted an error to flag it for others to see.

Absolutely! And the errors go back to the original surveyors. It begs the question do you transcribe what was originally there or do you transcribe the interpretation? The system in place should have a fields for alternatives.

What I'm getting at in general is that there's probably a strategy that could be defined to getting the most out of them.

In my selfish case I'm wondering if I need to get my hands dirty with some microfilm in Bishop Street. I'd like to know what Ancestry and the compiler of the printed index were working off.

Coolnabacky1873 · 07-05-2015 7:52pm

The availability of online records has fundamentally changed how we should do research. There are a number of steps involved in the production of an online version (be it a scan or transcription) from the original document. Each step along the way allows for the possibility of lost records. John Grenham had a column about this a few months ago:

(i) a set of records is microfilmed (but only 98% of them are)
(ii) over the years a couple of microfilms go missing (so we are down to 94%)
(iii) those microfilms are transcribed by OCR and people non familiar with the language and names, errors occur (down to 90% of the original number of records)
(iv) the set of microfilms is also digitized but some are accidentally omitted (down to 88%)
(v) the transcriptions and digital images are married together but there are errors (down to 85%)

Low and behold, we are all excited when a set of records comes online but we have a 15% chance of our person not being found. A small enough chance, but a significant number if there are 3 million people listed in the set of records.

The moral of the story and based on a excellent point that Pinkypinky made about the Civil Reg indexes: you have to check every version of a set of records and know where the gaps are. So, for example, for Civil Reg, check Familysearch, FMP, Irishgenealogy, etc...and maybe even the big ol' registers in Weburgh St.

This brings up two unrelated points but I'll make them anyway.
(i) if one is to do genealogy research to a high standard and follows the Genealogical Proof Standard, then an exhaustive search is a must.
(ii) this has created an opportunity for the professional genealogist. They will know where all versions of a record set are and what the gaps are. Some people will be willing to pay for the that knowledge.

shanew · 07-05-2015 7:54pm

I think a transcription should always reflect what's on the original, even if it seems to be incorrect - and if possible there should also be a separate key field, used for searches.

Thomas from Presence · 07-05-2015 8:40pm

Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »

This brings up two unrelated points but I'll make them anyway.
(i) if one is to do genealogy research to a high standard and follows the Genealogical Proof Standard, then an exhaustive search is a must.
(ii) this has created an opportunity for the professional genealogist. They will know where all versions of a record set are and what the gaps are. Some people will be willing to pay for the that knowledge.

Those are pertinent and definitely related points. In this particular instance it would seem viewing the original field books are the next logical step. You can see how the pros earn their money!

Going back to an earlier point I made on the thread on the church records release I think there is definitely room for a modern archival platform that involves crowdsourcing and a more up-to-date approach to meta tagging etc for the gamut of records out there.

In my travels I've come across plenty of offline work that would benefit from this and I'm sure there are enough human beings to correct OCR as they do their work. Lots of micro labour = one big task completed.

Has anyone been able to view the source documents of the Tithe Applotments?

L1011 · 07-05-2015 8:53pm

Both Ancestry and FamilySearch have crowdsourced transcription systems with peer review, etc. However, the state may have issues with both of them - Ancestry is entirely for commercial gain for instance.

pinkypinky · 08-05-2015 9:56am

Afaik, the Field books are going to be available online relatively soon through the NAI/FMP partnership.

Thomas from Presence · 08-05-2015 10:27am

pinkypinky wrote: »

Afaik, the Field books are going to be available online relatively soon through the NAI/FMP partnership.

That's good news. Do you know if the originals can be viewed in the NAI? Just in light of Coolnabacky1873's pertinent points it might be the definitive approach?

Coolnabacky1873 · 08-05-2015 1:21pm

L1011 wrote: »

Both Ancestry and FamilySearch have crowdsourced transcription systems with peer review, etc. However, the state may have issues with both of them - Ancestry is entirely for commercial gain for instance.

Any set of records that is indexes via crowd sourcing in Ancestry's World Archives Project is made available for free access in various ways.
http://landing.ancestry.com/wap/learnmore.aspx

Limitations of Tithe Applotments Online

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