Above, the shortcut I found to cut through the clutter of hints. My husband's Slatter family tree on Ancestry has more than 9,000 outstanding hints. Most of those are for ancestors too distant to be a priority. So I clicked on "records" to choose only those hints, then brought up the "filter by name" sorting option. (The default is "most recent" which means when Ancestry added that hint.)
By entering "Slatter" in the surname search box, I was able to view only record hints containing that name. Of course, I could have searched by first and last names, but given the creative spelling in so many records, I wanted to click through all Slatter record hints individually. Focusing on one surname enabled me to make progress, rather than being sidetracked by hints unrelated to my current research.
Now for the reminder about original records vs. transcriptions. The three dates on this record of marriage banns from a London church are 1 Dec, 8 Dec, and 15 Dec. The handwriting is very clear. At top of the page, not shown here, is the handwritten year--1907. Yet the transcription of this record says the year is 1908.
By reading the handwritten record, I was able to enter the correct dates for the marriage banns of Thomas Albert Slatter and Jessie Alice Elms. Also, the marriage license original confirmed the actual wedding day as 28 December 1907.
It's never safe to assume a transcription is accurate, let alone complete. It took only a few more clicks to view the originals and extract every possible data point.
My starting point for today's post was Elizabeth O'Neal's Genealogy Blog Party, July edition: Virtual Research Trippin'.
Good reminder of how being thorough in our genealogy research pays off, Marian.
ReplyDeleteYea, records are often transcribed very poorly
ReplyDeleteLike in the case of Henry Snell & his family, their surname was transcribed as "Suck"
https://ancestraladventures.wordpress.com/category/surnames/snell
It always pays to check the original whenever possible. I've found some very odd discrepancies along my research trail.
ReplyDeleteYou know what they say about about what happens when we "assume" (giggle). 9,000 hints? Holy smokes! Good job ferreting those out! And as always, thank you for participating in the Genealogy Blog Party! :-)
ReplyDeleteThe hints can be overwhelming and it's easy to let things slip by once you open those floodgates. It's good that you were paying attention!
ReplyDelete