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Problems correcting Census Online

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  • 19-12-2012 6:56pm
    #1
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭


    Since the 1901 and 1911 censuses went online I have submitted a number of corrections to the National Archive people and, while not receiving any reply, they were corrected. These were largely transcription errors. However, last year I submitted further corrections and these have not been corrected. Some of them were street/townland names etc. and the set-up online does not allow for those type of corrections. When you do finally find an email address to contact - not on the Census site - there is no response. I rang the National Archive today and felt that I was really talking to myself or it could have been the janitor. Anyway, in the heel of the hunt I have emailed the Organ Grinder aka Minister Jimmy Deenihan to see if he can get something sorted out. I should imagine that my experience is not unique and there must be a multitude of transcription errors that could be sorted out relatively easily if there was sufficient manpower. Given that Genealogical tourism could be the next big thing some joined-up thinking would be a good idea. Anybody else have any experience of reporting errors etc? :)


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    #2
    Coolnabacky1873
    Registered Users Posts: 556 ✭✭✭Coolnabacky1873


    John Grenham had an article about this a few weeks ago.


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    #3
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Interesting piece - I'm glad it wasn't just me being pedantic. :)


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    #4
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    It's one of my pet peeves - we had a thread on it here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=75135835 se my post #7

    Given the approach of our political masters it is hard not to agree with Gabriel Byrne - thankfully the guy has enough money & clout to stick it to them when it is deserved!


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    #5
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Mr Grenham has a wonderful turn of phrase! :D


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    #6
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    And two months since I contacted the Minister this is the solitary response. I shall no doubt be no further ahead by this time next year.

    CENSUS.PNG


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    #7
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,630 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Any corrections I've submitted have come through. All were obvious transcription errors. You say yours were "largely" transcription errors - what were the others?


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    #8
    TOMP
    Closed Accounts Posts: 328 ✭✭TOMP


    A few months ago, I looked up 1901 census at National Archives website for some relatives in county westmeath, when I clicked the Household Return (Form A) link, I was taken to a form for a family in County Sligo! This mistake was not present when I looked up the same family a few years ago. I emailed the problem details to the National Archives at the time but the problem is still there as of today.


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    #9
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    MYOB wrote: »
    Any corrections I've submitted have come through. All were obvious transcription errors. You say yours were "largely" transcription errors - what were the others?

    Place names, street names etc.see my OP. The whole lack of response to queries etc. is utterly ridiculous and must be be down to insufficient manpower. If the government are serious about developing tourism - they aren't - they would want to start micro-managing key items like the census online. Draft in additional staff, improve the website so that incorrect townlands, street names etc. can be reported.....I forgot to mention that I never received an actual letter, just an email of the letter internally titled re: Spam!!

    I see that the 1926 census is not due to be released until 2027 http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/help/history.html - why? A huge research hole exists between 1911 (the last all-island British census) and 1926 (the first Free State census) - surely legislation could be put through allowing the 1926 census to be made available earlier?


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    #10
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,630 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    That's the existing legal position, but deenihan promised legislation to allow an early release. Its not microfilmed or transcribed though so that's another year or two delay after legislation...


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    #11
    shanew
    Registered Users Posts: 2,777 ✭✭✭shanew


    not directly related, but I think probably more important is looking into the missing streets and townlands on the online census - particularly the returns not filmed or missed out during the process. A list of the status of these townlands and streets would be very useful - i.e. missing, unreadable, available but not-filmed, omitted in error, under investigation etc.



    Shane


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    #12
    pinkypinky
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,616 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    They still have not corrected one I submitted the day the Dublin 1911 was launched online in 2007. An obvious transcription error of putting one of the first names in the surname box.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #13
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    By complete coincidence I received a further email from the Dept. this morning - as is typical when dealing with such bodies, they fail to address the points that I raised. I learnt in my first job, back in 1977, how to answer a letter containing questions - you circle or highlight each question and craft your reply accordingly answering each point. Whether it's CIE, Failte Ireland, The Heritage Council,Government Depts., or whatever, it's virtually impossible to get clear responses to questions. The two emails below are self explanatory.

    CENSUS+LET+TO+JDEENIHAN+1.PNG
    My email of Dec.19th, 2012

    census+feb+2013+2.PNG

    Latest response which fails to reply to the issues raised. I hope they are legible as a bit of juggling was required.


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    #14
    pinkypinky
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,616 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    Fascinating - thanks for sharing.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #15
    jos28
    Registered Users Posts: 7,189 ✭✭✭jos28


    I have submitted the same error 2 or 3 times and I have emailed the NAI but it still hasn't been amended. My Grandad Bartholomew Glover is listed on the 1901 as Bartholomen Horse :eek:


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    #16
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    I just checked to see if you were pulling our legs but sure enough you're bang on. They seem to be a lot of Horses in that 1901 Census - is there such a surname? I wonder whether the work of transcribing was outsourced to a Third World country such as India?


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    #17
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    A quick check online - in the Eircom phonebook - was futile as the only thing that comes up is Horse & Jockey. However, the name does appear to have been an old English name but looking at some of original enumerators sheets I suspect that some of the Horses were mis-transcriptions. I also had a flick through some old phonebooks that I still have and the nearest to Horse that I could find was a Robert Horsburgh - great name with the days we're living in. :D


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    #18
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Locals should have done the transcriptions - they would recognise the names immediately. Any fool would have known that. If they saved money on the original deal they are now going to spend even more getting the corrections done. What a waste of money.


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    #19
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    There are not that many Horses –18 in the 1901 and 9 in the 1911. Many are from the same family/area, and it does appear to be correct See here and here - elsewhere one or two might be the surname ‘Honce’.
    There are eight Horse families in Griffiths here

    What is more annoying are stupid errors e.g. in the 1901 one Tipperary townland is incorrectly 'divided' into Ballykisteen and Ballyristeen, the latter daftly listed as “Houses in Ballyristeen (Ballykisteen, Tipperary)” Ballyristeen is in Co. Kerry, near Dingle.


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    #20
    jos28
    Registered Users Posts: 7,189 ✭✭✭jos28


    Horse :confused: I mean where did they get that from Glover. He was living with his family who are all listed correctly. Someone must have had a late night the night before. I would quite happily take a job at the NAI correcting all the errors. Now, there's an idea !


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    #21
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Would be nice to get a job again, but doing something I enjoy would be great. Can't remember what a payslip looks like.


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    #22
    jos28
    Registered Users Posts: 7,189 ✭✭✭jos28


    Jellybaby1 wrote: »
    Can't remember what a payslip looks like.

    Mine is a piece of paper with a moxy load of deductions and a small figure at the end:D


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    #23
    Coolnabacky1873
    Registered Users Posts: 556 ✭✭✭Coolnabacky1873


    On the Irish Genealogy News blog genealogist Claire Bradley has a review of the Clare Roots Conference.

    One of the speakers was Catriona Crowe of the National Archives and she outlined that we can expect a rebuild of the census website to go live within a few weeks with most of the submitted corrections done!


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    #24
    Judgement Day
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,549 ✭✭✭✭Judgement Day


    Coolnabacky1873 wrote: »
    On the Irish Genealogy News blog genealogist Claire Bradley has a review of the Clare Roots Conference.

    One of the speakers was Catriona Crowe of the National Archives and she outlined that we can expect a rebuild of the census website to go live within a few weeks with most of the submitted corrections done!

    Except, of course, the huge number of corrections that cannot be submitted (e.g.townlands, street names..) due to the poorly designed website. :rolleyes:


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    #25
    odds_on
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,869 ✭✭✭odds_on


    Judgement Day wrote: »
    I just checked to see if you were pulling our legs but sure enough you're bang on. They seem to be a lot of Horses in that 1901 Census - is there such a surname? I wonder whether the work of transcribing was outsourced to a Third World country such as India?
    I cane across one entry which gave the place of Birth as just "Seeds". On looking at the original form, it is "Leeds Yorks". OK, the "L" is pretty stylish, but really, Seeds?

    Now, I think most Irish people would know of Leeds but there again, I could be wrong


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    #26
    pinkypinky
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,616 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    I think most people would know of Leeds, but since the transcribing was done in Canada and India, that's where the mistake was made.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #27
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,302 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    One of my ancestors was a nun in a convent in Rathmines. On the 1911 Census return in the column Relation to head the first entry should read Prioress. It's rather ironic in light of recent events that it's been transcribed as Prison!

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #28
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,630 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Clare Santry's blog reports that 12,600 errors have been fixed in a reindex, including the one that caused me to go down the garden path for a month due to finding my g-grandfather's identically named cousin...

    Looks to have been a long term backlog - my first batch were done while there was still indexing going on - when there was 1911 for a few counties only - so it seems that anything after that probably got held over till recently.


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    #29
    odds_on
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,869 ✭✭✭odds_on


    pedroeibar1 wrote: »
    There are not that many Horses –18 in the 1901 and 9 in the 1911. Many are from the same family/area, and it does appear to be correct See here and here - elsewhere one or two might be the surname ‘Honce’.
    There are eight Horse families in Griffiths here

    What is more annoying are stupid errors e.g. in the 1901 one Tipperary townland is incorrectly 'divided' into Ballykisteen and Ballyristeen, the latter daftly listed as “Houses in Ballyristeen (Ballykisteen, Tipperary)” Ballyristeen is in Co. Kerry, near Dingle.
    One has to look at the original form and as pedroeibar says, most of the entries do look like "Horse". Some less clear entries may also be "House".

    What the transcribers have tried to do is provide a complete name without any symbols indicating an illegible letter or group of letters (as used by the FreeBMD in England).

    However, when it is reasonably obvious, without too much deciphering, a mis-transcription "Hamey" is clearly Harney, and "Peny" may not have been to clear as the Head of family, his wife was clearly Perry on the form.

    Then I had
    Coonan which should be Cowman.
    Harle which should be Harte
    Braton which should be Bruton
    Bulter which should be Butler (the "t" was badly crossed)
    Cohelan which should be Whelan
    Mulcaly which should be Mulcahy
    Dunply which should be Dunphy
    Faley which should be Foley
    Mayes which should be Hayes
    Clany which should be Clancy (as the rest of the family)
    Lusan which was Susan
    Devid which was David

    However, the search facility does not work well when using * for a unknown letter or group of letters. Using the P* (for a first name), can give a "Too many results", while omitting P* altogether, provides a manageable number of results.


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    #30
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    The original transcription was done in India.

    For my money, the Indians did a fantastic job, given that they didn't know the place names and many of the forenames and surnames. It would be great to have a staff in the National Archives checking the corrections given and adding them when appropriate, but there just isn't the money at the moment.

    When/if the country gets back on its feet, Ireland's population is small enough - and the country is important enough as a source of emigration to the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Australia, etc - we could do much more.

    It would be absolutely possible, given the people to do it, to put the births, marriages and deaths online, and to link people with their children and spouses, and with emigration records. Crowdsourcing this to the extent that you could email in a correction (as with the censuses) would be possible.

    This would mean that we'd have an invaluable database of when and where people were born, who their parents were (and back into history), who they married and who their children were (and forward into history), and, if they took any of the liners to the US, we'd have ship records and Ellis Island records, linked to whole families, and US and Canadian army records, draft cards and so on.


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    #31
    Hermy
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 11,302 Mod ✭✭✭✭Hermy


    Qualitymark wrote: »
    ...there just isn't the money at the moment...

    I wonder how many unemployed amateur genealogists there are in Ireland at present who would be glad to give their time towards a project like this. I know I would!

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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