Mistakes in original sources - how to note?
I have found many mistakes in original sources lately and am curious if others have experienced the same thing. The latest find was yesterday when I found a birth record for a great uncle on Ancestry. The person who recorded the births for the town added no given names to the children born. They are all listed with their surnames only. The record has the birth date and the parents names for each child except in my great uncle's case the names of the parents are incorrect. The names given are Daniel and Sarah when his parents first names were Dan and Emma. I can understand the Daniel but Sarah? The town they lived in was tiny that the 1900 census is only 3 images.
I recently took photos of records from a church record and one of the above named sisters has an aunt and uncle listed as her parents in that record. Other church records give the correct parents for both her and her brother mentioned above. I knew these people quite well. The great aunt lived over the road from me when I was growing up.
I had problems finding the death record for my gr gr grandmother, Mary Ann Simpson Powell. She was grandmother to the above to people. When I finally found her record her given name is listed as Sarah. The informant was a son-in-law who apparently didn't know her name. This is the only place I have found her name as Sarah.
The last example is the death date for a great aunt. Her death certificate was not filed until nine months after her death. Family records, church records, her obit and headstone are all correct.
Thus the challenges. I am not sure I have one ancestor where documents and family stories/facts are the same. On my great-grandfather's obit, I Carol, am the young great-grandson. Just one example.
ReplyDeleteDocuments are only as accurate as the memory of the person providing the information and the understanding of the one recording it (as in the case of clerks). When my greats went to the county courthouse, it must have been a 2 to 4 hour drive ONE way, over several mountains, on dirt (make that muddy) roads. Therefore, many delays in recording of stuff.
DO a search on nicknames for women, is Emma a nickname for Sarah??
I have a Martha, several in fact, that are also known as Polly.
Gosh, I love this stuff, even the stuff that is "wrong". :-)
This is especially true when clerks were filling in information on lined sheets - sometimes they messed up and sometimes you can catch errors or additional handwriting in the original that shows how they attempted to fix. Now when one of those sheets is indexed incorrectly - ah trouble times two! I guess it goes to show we all make mistakes.
ReplyDeleteCan't find anything as far as the nicknames go. I did find Sarah was a nickname for Susan. It is so obvious the lady who recorded the births didn't talk to the parents. If she had, at least some of the children would have given names listed. I'm thinking it might be that the recorder thought the mother's name was Sarah. This was back in the day when all women were Mrs. John Doe or just Mrs. Doe.
ReplyDeleteThe funniest one is the son-in-law who didn't know his mother-in-laws given name.