Missing records? Don't rely on Ancestry's indexing

[Graham Ward]

If you are looking for a parish BMD record, just because it's not been indexed by Ancestry does not mean it is not there. I have found many instances where pages that are a challenge to read are simply not indexed at all. So if you have a rough idea when the event might have occurred, check the images if they are available! I have found examples where several pages are skipped, or perhaps a few records at the top of the page are indexed, but then the indexer has given up!

Yes, it might challenge you palaeography skills but might be well worth your time.

 

[peter]

I would hope that nobody in this forum relies on transcriptions when there are images available online.

In my experience the most common reason for Ancestry apparently failing to index entries is because there are entries on the same page from two completely different time periods (perhaps as much as a century apart), and they have all been indexed as if they were in the same year(s). This is very difficult to spot without going through the register page by page, but sometimes you can find a missing entry by assuming that the year has been wrongly indexed.

I have found examples where several pages are skipped, or perhaps a few records at the top of the page are indexed, but then the indexer has given up!

This is much rarer - but it's usually easy to spot when it does happen, because you won't get any results for that time period.

 

[Bryman]

This does not just apply to Ancestry. I have also found such errors with FMP when clicking on the check arrow having entered new records on My Ancestors page.