How to confuse an Englishman viewing Irish Records?

[Bob Spiers]

I needed little reminding to try out FMP’s new 10 million Irish Catholic Register entries and given I have delved somewhat into my Irish Roots before and with a fair idea of the area of Co Galway I needed to view, and likely the Parish, I hoped (prayed) to find something new. In a sense my prayers were answered, but as I have learned over time anything concerning Irish Records will pose more questions than it answers.

I am reminded of the Irish Chestnut that to confuse an Irishman you put 3 shovels in front of him and tell him to take his Pick! But now it is the turn of the Irish to confuse this Englishman and I will start with the heading: “Ireland Census search forms 1841 & 1851 Transcription” and the Transcription itself which I show under:




© brightsolid online publishing Ireland ltd.

Here are the facts already known (or believed known) by me:

James & Bridget Flynn (nee Walsh). James born 1816 & Bridget 1817. Both Co. Galway and both Kilbegnet Parish. I know of 3 children and most importantly their years of birth which are important in comparing my comments to follow: Bridget 1844; John 1848 & Mary 1851.


The first thing to ask is why the does the heading list both 1841 & 1851; is it one or the other or both? As all of the children are born after 1841 it has to be 1851 for any children to exist. Yet when we look at the Census details for the Applicant (and the same for all others) we find it lists the Census year as 1841.




This is wrong not just on my own evidence of the ages of the children, but there is a second page labelled ‘Extract from Census Return of 1851 (which I cover in a moment) which clearly negates that it cannot be 1841.

But let us examine the given years of birth for the children in the (supposed) 1841 Census:

Bridget 1835 :: Mary ? (no date) :: John 1838 :: Festy (?) 1831 (new to me) :: Bridget (again) 1835 :: John (again) but 1839 (a year younger).

The dates are all about 10 years out, some duplicated and I learn of a new daughter(?) Festy. I doubt the name is correct but rather a corruption of a name as I cannot find it under any Irish name source. However, it may be a child I know nothing about.

Returning now to a second page labelled Extract from Census Return of 1851. This apparently was raised by the ‘Ministry of Housing, Whitehall SW1’ -in other words in England – dated 1920 and clearly a search of the 1851 Census to no doubt confirm the bona fides of the family. It confirms Address, Barony, Parish & Townland and verifies the birth registration of the two youngest and the father’s occupation as Tailor. Yet another note (handwritten) confirms the ages of the children (in 1851) as Festy 10; Bridget 6; & John 2. Mary is not shown even though born 1851 after the Census but almost certainly because she died as a baby and (in 1920) no longer part of the family. Of particular interest is a handwritten query concerning the marriage year of 1842 (which I believe correct) because of the age of the eldest Festy in 1841 and has ?1839 pencilled in

So what have I learned other than the confusion of the Census years, the years and ages of the children which I believe are nonsense and almost as if someone has deducted 10 years to make them show as true for 1841, even though they were all born after that date. I do have information there may have been another child ‘Festy’ or whatever and if she does exist, to check on the marriage year, assuming they were all good Catholics putting the marriage first which is most likely at that time. In short it is all very Irish and most confusing.

 

[MaryL]

I learn of a new daughter(?) Festy. I doubt the name is correct but rather a corruption of a name as I cannot find it under any Irish name source. However, it may be a child I know nothing about.

There are 93 people called Festy in the 1901 census, all male and all but one living in Co Galway.

 

[Bob Spiers]

There are 93 people called Festy in the 1901 census, all male and all but one living in Co Galway.

I am indebted to you, both for the information Festy is a male name and seemingly popular in Co Galway. I am surprised it did not show in a Googled 'Irish Names' check and from more than one source.

Bridget Flynn (1844) was my Great Grandmother and she, brother John & sister Mary came over to England from Co Galway with their parents (my Great x 2 Grandparents) sometime after 1851. Mary sadly died circa 1853 but the other two had large families, and Bridget's daughter Mary (likely named after the sibling who died) became my paternal Grandmother.

I must now investigate Festy born as early as 1841 (I shall ignore 1831 for the time being) and wonder why he has not appeared in any of my earlier research nor so much as raised his head in any of the family annals. Plus of course it seems likely his birth occurred prior to what I believe is a known marriage taking place in Glinsk/Kilbegnet in 1842. I may learn he is a cousin but it will be interesting finding out one way or the other.

 

[Gillian]

For once I'm glad my Irish forebears were Church of Ireland and Methodists!

 

[Margery]

my Irish forebears were Church of Ireland and Methodists

So were my husband's, but over the years they all seem to have converted to Catholicism. When we first visited (and made so welcome) they were concerned that they should find us a Protestant church to attend. C of I records are far and few between, unfortunately.

 

[peter]

As far as I can see Bob's problems have nothing to do with the Catholic registers - that was clearly designed to confuse us.

If Bob looks at the image he'll find out which year the records relate to - it's not rocket science.

 

[Gillian]

So were my husband's, but over the years they all seem to have converted to Catholicism. When we first visited (and made so welcome) they were concerned that they should find us a Protestant church to attend. C of I records are far and few between, unfortunately.

It worked the other way round with me. I was the visiting Catholic, my dad having converted way back in the 1920s, and one of my relatives went out of her way to take me to a Catholic church. I was also told that a generation or so ago, my religion might have posed a problem.

 

[Bob Spiers]

As far as I can see Bob's problems have nothing to do with the Catholic registers - that was clearly designed to confuse us.

If Bob looks at the image he'll find out which year the records relate to - it's not rocket science.

No it's more 'damp squib' science and what has the image to do with it? Yes in an English Census the image (an handwritten original) is everything, but here (in my case at any rate) it was merely an English handwritten interrogation of the 1851 Census, and yes that was useful, as was the continuation page.

My comments were all about the Census Results where for each individual shown (by clicking on Transcription) were all admitted to being from the 1841 Census. Names were duplicated (why?), ages may have been right for the 1851 Census but the calculated years based on the 1841 Census were nonsense. e.g.:

Transcript: Bridget Flynn; birth year 1835; Census year 1841; Age 6. (She was born Dec 1844 so 6 in 1851)

About the only useful thing learned was there may have been an additional family member.

It is not enough to say they were clearly designed to confuse us, even though they surely did. There should have been a logic behind it and I suppose someone will tell me yes, an Irish logic. I could report an error in transcription but on what evidence? Perhaps I drew the short straw, but somehow I doubt it.

 

[peter]

The point I was making, Bob, is that when the original records are available online, transcriptions are simply finding aids. What's the point of puzzling over the transcription? All that's happened is that the transcriber has entered the wrong census year - annoying, but at least you found the record you were looking for.

And, yes, of course you should correct the transcription errors - not least because it will be your own cousins who benefit. Here's a link to the image for anyone (with a Findmypast subscription) who is wondering what the fuss is all about. I've also added a copyright notice to the original post - always include a copyright notice when posting information that belongs to someone else.

 

[Bob Spiers]

And, yes, of course you should correct the transcription errors

I have submitted a transcription error report most importantly about the census year. This should compute hopefully to correct the birth years. I have also queried why both Bridget & John are duplicated but not expecting too much from that.

I note what you say about not spending time puzzling over transcription errors, but I'm afraid sometimes they are inexcusable as I believe on this occasion. I know you rush to the defence of the Transcribers, and have tended to go along with that, but on this occasion have little sympathy for them as the whole Transcription was a shambles and not just for getting the Census year wrong. Yes the 2 images saved the day for me but only because I understood what they were trying to say although the additional child was news to me. Without this additional knowledge the images may even have added to the Transcript confusion.

Remind me never to complain again about researching French genealogy sites, there it is just a matter of getting a language translation.

 

[peter]

I note what you say about not spending time puzzling over transcription errors, but I'm afraid sometimes they are inexcusable as I believe on this occasion.

People make mistakes - in this case the transcriber entered 1841 as the date of the census instead of 1851. All the other discrepancies followed from that one error.

The reason for the multiple entries is so obvious that I didn't bother stating it earlier - some of the names appear multiple times in the source document. It's not the job of the transcriber to figure out whether it's the same person referred to in each instance, and in any case they may not have sufficient information. I can only refer you back to my previous comment - that the transcription is a finding guide, and it's up to you to study the source document.

Yes, the transcriber picked the wrong census year. Annoying, but we all make mistakes - including me and including you. That single incorrect digit meant that the years of birth were calculated incorrectly from the ages shown, just as would have happened if you had entered a household from the 1891 Census on your My Ancestors page as if it was from the 1881 Census.

The one good thing that has come out of this is that you now have a better understanding of this dataset, and of the transcription process. But on the whole transcription errors are not worthy of discussion on this forum - I don't start a discussion every time a LostCousins member enters incorrect data on their My Ancestors page!

 

[Bob Spiers]

People make mistakes

Yes Peter I agree everyone makes mistakes, including yours truly, but it is one thing to forgive someone trying to decipher spidery handwriting or other ambiguities, and another to give cart blanche to sub-standard transcription work, even if caused by handicaps placed on the way the transcription work is done. (The 1939 Register springs to mind).

I was brought up to believe he who pays the Piper calls the tune and sites like FMP/Ancestry that charge quite meaty subscriptions must be held accountable when in someone's option they are deemed to fall short. After all that is why people check on Customer Reviews before purchase, and use comparison web sites to sort the wheat from the chaff. The Forum offers a wonderful medium for both critical and complimentary comment; it is one of its main strengths and long may it remain so.

 

[peter]

The Forum offers a wonderful medium for both critical and complimentary comment; it is one of its main strengths and long may it remain so.

Yes, but the comments need to be constructive and worthy of other forum users' attention, otherwise they're likely to be deleted by a moderator. All researchers encounter transcription errors with such frequency that we rarely need to know about the errors that others have found.

What we do need to know is whether the error you encountered is a rare exception, or are they are a significant number of records in this dataset where the census year has been incorrectly recorded by the transcriber? Because if it's the latter, anyone using this dataset will need to modify their search strategy accordingly.

Had I come across the error myself I would have analysed a randomly-selected sample of records, and only then decided whether I'd found something worth alerting others to. As you're the one who raised this, can I suggest that you carry out an analysis and report back?

 

[Bob Spiers]

....What we do need to know is whether the error you encountered is a rare exception, or are they are a significant number of records in this dataset where the census year has been incorrectly recorded by the transcriber? Because if it's the latter, anyone using this dataset will need to modify their search strategy accordingly.

Had I come across the error myself I would have analysed a randomly-selected sample of records, and only then decided whether I'd found something worth alerting others to. As you're the one who raised this, can I suggest that you carry out an analysis and report back?

Points noted but my comment was one of personal affront to report what I considered to be sloppy transcribing and to alert that if it can happen to me it can happen to others. I doubt I will have time to carry out a random analysis but I may be able to check on the verity of other Transcriptions after more dedicated research to answer some of the questions arising from my previous research. I will report back in due time if I discover anything pertinent to the points you raise.

 

[peter]

my comment was one of personal affront to report what I considered to be sloppy transcribing

Hopefully you no longer feel affronted, or consider that the transcribing was sloppy, now that you realise that the transcriber only got one digit wrong. An important digit, it's true, but these are Irish records, and therefore Murphy's Law applies.

 

[Bob Spiers]

but these are Irish records, and therefore Murphy's Law applies.

Well perhaps a little less affronted, particularly since your Murphy's Law comment lightened the matter.

I always applied that law to searching via Roots Ireland. It would allow (say) a baptismal search for my appointed county (Galway East or West) and Parish and provide an answer, but if I then sought out the same Parish to carry out a marriage or burial search (or any permutation of same), the Parish would disappear from the filter list. If I asked why I would be told no records were currently available for that Parish under that search criterion. I would be directed to the 'cop-out' (reverting to schoolboy patois) that 'not all records are available in all counties or townlands'. You only discovered this by searching of course.

Mind you having written that and finding my ongoing FMP research less than helpful in answering 'who the heck is Festy' I tried Roots Ireland on another computer. There to my surprise and delight I discovered that Festy was almost certainly Festus Flynn born to James Flynn and Maria Conway in 1841 in my Glinsk(Kilbegnet) parish. Now all I have to do is find out what part Maria Conway plays in the affair and whether or not this Festus is part of my family or just included by accident?

 

[Katie Bee]

So was James married to Maria before Bridget?
I will await your update with interest.
Well done for spotting Festus.

Transcription errors annoy me, especially when they look so obvious.
I try to remember that a lot of the transcriptions are done by people who do not have English as their first language. So they can't be expected to get it right all the time.
But the sites obviously do not practice quality control or else many of the silly errors would be caught before the transcriptions went live!

 

[peter]

Transcription errors annoy me, especially when they look so obvious.
I try to remember that a lot of the transcriptions are done by people who do not have English as their first language. So they can't be expected to get it right all the time.
But the sites obviously do not practice quality control or else many of the silly errors would be caught before the transcriptions went live!

Quality control does not imply zero errors - it implies an acceptable number of errors (perhaps you should have looked up the definition before posting?). The cost of eliminating all errors is usually prohibitive - at the very least it requires everything to be done twice then compared.

Since the source data has already been transcribed at least once (in the early 20th century) it's difficult to argue that the 21st century needs to be 100% accurate. It may also have been transcribed in 1841/51 - I don't know whether they worked from the Householder Schedules or the Enumerator Summaries.

You also make the mistake of assuming that transcribers whose first language is not English are more likely to make mistakes - my understanding is that they are likely to make fewer mistakes, although I can't remember where I read this. The 1939 Register was transcribed in the UK, but that hasn't stopped people whinging about transcription errors!

 

[emjay]

The 1939 Register was transcribed in the UK, but that hasn't stopped people whinging about transcription errors!

Most of the 1939 Registers 'errors' I find can be overcome, some are amusing,some incredulous! But comments by forum members are mostly just that...comments, not whinges as such.

However, if we were still having to buy credits to open households.......

 

[Bob Spiers]

So was James married to Maria before Bridget?
I will await your update with interest. Well done for spotting Festus.

Thanks and be sure I will report my findings in due time.

Quality control does not imply zero errors - it implies an acceptable number of errors (perhaps you should have looked up the definition before posting?).

Don't worry Katie you have touched a raw nerve with Peter as will anyone he believes carps over transcription errors. However he is correct in saying Quality Control (part of my job before retirement) is designed to keep errors to a minimum. To eliminate errors (also as Peter says) you need to repeat an action -as in the old card punching days where they employed someone to 'verify' the same actions.

If there was some kind of Quality Control when transcription took place it would, I fear, have been of the primitive kind with just someone on call to look at things with another pair of eyes. It's a pity the Transcriber who came up with the first name 'Horror' (I can prove this if anyone doubts) didn't seek a second opinion, then he would most probably have been told the name was likely 'Honor'. It reminds of watching the TV programme 'Catch Phrase' when the contestant is told to 'just say what you see' and many come out with gobbledygook to the great amusement of everyone. The bottom line I'm afraid is that we, the enquirers, have become Quality Control.