Beattie/Montgomery Mystery ?????

[Baldy]

I am looking for help/information on a problem.
Here is the problem. According to the 1901 census
I have been researching the Beattie's and have come across the below;
Maggie Montgomery DOB C:-1876
Mary Montgomery DOB,C:-1880
Agnes Montgomery DOB,C:-1886
Alexander Montgomery DOB,C:-1898

The census show the parents as Ebenezer Beattie & Sarah?
How can this be ?????

I welcome any help at all

TIA
Baldy (au)

[emanday]

Is there any possibility that Sarah was married before and these are the children of that first marriage?

You'd expect them to be shown as stepchildren, but I have a family in my line where the stepson, still with his deceased father's surname, is listed as son to the 2nd husband in the census.

[Jack]

Hi Baldy,
Were your 1901 details from Ancestry?
If so, then quite understandable there is confusion....
Seems there's been a wee mix up - make that Big Mix Up!
(and for some reason they also had a Maggie as Ebenezer's mother...)
They are two separate families; here's what the page actually says.
--
1901 census 882 Ed 10 p 3, Lines 14-18 (Troqueer)
61 Glasgow St. [schedule 19]
Ebenezer BEATTIE, head, marr, 53, general labourer, b Kirkbean, KKD
Sarah BEATTIE, wife, marr, 43, -----------------------b Maxwelltown, KKD
Janet Agnes BEATTIE, daur, 13, scholar, b Maxwelltown, KKD
James Johnston BEATTIE, son, 8, scholar, b Maxwelltown, KKD
Thomas BEATTIE, son, 5, scholar, b Maxwelltown, KKD

--next household--

1901 census 882 Ed 10 p 3, Lines 19-22 (Troqueer)
61 Glasgow St. [schedule 20]
Maggie MONTGOMERY, her mother from home, u/m 25, domestic servant, b Maxwelltown, KKD
Mary MONTGOMERY, daur, u/m 21, shop assistant, b Maxwelltown, KKD
Agnes MONTGOMERY, daur, u/m 15, factory worker, woolen gloves, b Maxwelltown, KKD
Alexander MONTGOMERY, son, 13, scholar, b Maxwelltown, KKD
--
Seems mother of the Montgomery children (who's name is Margaret) was away from home on census night.
And daur Maggie was temporalily "holding the fort" till her mother returned.
--
Like yourself Mary, i first thought a re-marriage.
But the Beatties & the Montgomerys are in Troqueer 1891 as separate families at different addresses.
Jack

[emanday]

Beat me to it Jack

After I'd posted my reply I had a look in Ancestry to see if Ebenezer had a different wife in 1891 and realised what had happened with the 1901 census.

I wonder how many more there are like that

[Jack]

Hi Mary,
Probably very many kicking about somewhere...!
But this is the World of Ancestry who had "Humans" to do the transcribing.
Perhaps that meant turning pages for the OCR software to do the work?

There are far too many glaring errors for a real person to make.
Someone with even a basic understanding of the English language would never transcribe what we see daily.
Ancestry's "Quality Control" seems non-existant, or is woefully inadequate for something so important.
And they charge you for it - imagine buying a reference book with as many errors!

When did we last have an Asst. Bonk Keeper in our families?
I'm quite sure i've none in my own....
If this was an isolated case then we could readily accept that there will be the occasional human error.
But it's not, and some of the "transcriptions" are gobbledygook at its best.
(or should that be worst?)

Possibly at the beginning Ancestry used real transcribers, but they've now sacrificed any quality for quantity.
And it shows.
One major gripe with the censuses 1851+ is that they never show the, often important, marital status.

Well that's my moan for the day over; feeling better already!
Jack

[paddyscar]

I cannae 'haud ma wheesht' any longer! I am not a fan of Ancestry.

Working with catalogues, databases, developing classification systems and indexes and doing research my entire career, I take everything I find in any Ancestry products, with SLABS of salt. I look at Ancestry for possibilities never facts. It will only become worse the longer Ancestry uses the current level of 'human' transcription service.

In days gone by, when missionaries and church members were hunting through records and including variations on names that weren't quite legible, or on foreign names, it was done with the best of intentions. Allowing those who searched likely alternatives. Their work was hard, long, unpaid and groundbreaking. It is sad to see such a well-intentioned effort being wasted.

It is obvious that the NUMBER of records retrieved on any search is far more important than CORRECT records retrieved. The NUMBER of records is the prime focus.

Inaccuracies in transcription, repeated through time, eventually will be treated as fact and the entire database is diminished.

Frances
This is purely a personal comment

[Russell]

Frances

I would class your comment as a 'professional observation'.

Thank goodness for scotlandspeople. Not only are the majority of their entries correct - or as correct as they can be given the originals they worked from - but they actually are interested in any notifications that we submit and endeavour to change the data location.

I wouldn't touch ancestry with a barge-pole.

Russell

[paddyscar]

Thanks for the affirmation of my professional capabilities, Russell.

Just wanted to be clear that I wasn't speaking on behalf of TS, not that I could, but didn't want anyone jumping to any conclusions.
Frances

[Baldy]

Hi Jack & others
Thanks for all replies
WOW.

Yes I was on the Ancestry site.
Perhaps I should have gone straight to the 1901 census site in stead of Ancestry ???

What a GREAT mess this turned out be.!!!!!!!

One now wonders "IF" any of the records were actually rechecked PRIOR to be put up by Ancestry ????

The answers given certainly do clear up the problem.

Thanks to all that gave their replies & thoughts,they have been appreciated
Regarsd Ted (au)

[Jack]

Hi Ted,
Glad you've now got your Beatties sorted...the Montgomerys aren't yours!

Ancestry is a pain to search for the most part.
It would need a vast improvement before i could ever recommend them.

Quite right Frances; don't haud yer wheest...especially when you're right !
As you wisely said; "I look at Ancestry for possibilities never facts."

It shouldn't be that way, but i doubt they ever will correct all their errors.
Of which there must be very many thousands; not a few dozens.
So bottom line on Ancestry for me is that it's only a guide - and a rather poor one at that.
Finding how they spell a name can be quite a hurdle to begin with....
And their "Soundex" is often hopeless.
Oh, but you do get a LOT of names; doesn't matter if they're nothing like what you're looking for....

Still can't believe that Ancestry actually had "Do" & "Ditto" as surnames!
So not every entry is checked; perhaps it's one page in a hundred, or whatever.
Jack

[LesleyB]

hi Jack

Still can't believe that Ancestry actually had "Do" & "Ditto" as surnames

What's with the past tense?? I checked, not quite believing anywhere would be so daft ...and they still "do" have 'em!

So for those of you with surname Ditto, here is a breakdown of how they are spread throughout the census years:

50 in the 1841 Scotland Census
10 in the 1851 Scotland Census
14 in the 1861 Scotland Census
52 in the 1881 Scotland Census
4 in the 1891 Scotland Census

The Do family average out at about 15 per census year, so the Dittos have the edge. Seems the Dittos were extinct in 1871, but they must have made a comeback for the following census - or maybe, and this hardly bears thinking about.... they are the victim of a transcription error!!

Hey, and I thought having several Ross families in Easter Ross and a Smith branch was enough to make life difficult!

Best wishes
Lesley
p.s. There are Dottos, Duttos and Dettos in England too.... so they may be related branches of the same family?

[StewL]

After continually reading about all the failings on Ancestry I am glad that I have never had the inclination to use the site.
Maybe that means I really do have the sight
And knew not to go near it

[DavidWW]

And how about the weel kent name of SIMTH

That's a surprisingly common surname in the ScotlandsPeople census indexes (1871 at least, unless it's now been corrected, - somewhere I've got details on a quick survey that I did for this, BORWN, and a few similar; but maybe it's lost on the former ScotlandsPeople DG.)

Take any name, particularly common, short ones, transpose a couple of letters, and you'll find examples; some of which, of course, may well be correct, if that's the way that they are shown in the original document


Then there's that very well known Glaswegian given name PARTICK, - see http://talkingscot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4929


I'm not going to be drawn on whether there's more errors in one or another index, but the Golden Rule is always, but always, to check out the original. ScotlandsPeople has the advantage of scans of the originals. Ancestry has the advantage of more searchable fields, and different search possibilities, e.g. no surname required................... one thing that Ancestry's subcontractors seem to have problems with compared to other databases, is "complicated" households, i.e. something more than the standard maw, paw, and X wains, all of the same surname. Again, to be fair, when you look at the original, you have to have some sympathy for someone coming to the situation with minimal experience, especially when the handwriting appears to resemble that of a spider just back from a pub crawl.........

David

[Baldy]

Well,looks like I opened a can of worms with this anomaly ?

The seems to more than myself who is or has had problems with Ancestry

One wonders if anyone from Ancestry reads these thread ?????

[DavidWW]

Well,looks like I opened a can of worms with this anomaly ?

The seems to more than myself who is or has had problems with Ancestry

One wonders if anyone from Ancestry reads these thread ?????

, maybe even a severe warning.....

Wayuullll, you have been warned .......................


One does indeed wonder regarding Ancestry reading these threads, but then I'm picking up suggestions from more than one source to the effect that they're not particularly bothered.

This, in the sense that they are more interested in seeing as many as possible resources made available to their present and possible future subscribers as opposed to paying their sub-contractors a bit more in order to achieve a higher level of accuracy.

There's arguments on both sides

And these have to be put in the context that once you get to an accuracy of, say, 90%, the costs for increasing that accuracy are not linear, but exponential. In others words, and my figures are purely for the sake of example, it could be the case that 99.5% guaranteed accuracy could cost 5 or even 10 times the cost of 90% accuracy.

This also in the context of just what is "accuracy". In terms of the material we're talking about here, it's what was written in the BMDs or censuses.

Especially in relation to censuses, it's well known that the enumerators made errors, some more than others, when they transcribed the info from the individual household schedules to the enumeration books that we know.

I can quote many examples where I'd transcribe the material exactly as it is shown on Ancestry or ScotlandsPeople, but I can prove that it's "wrong", except it's not in terms of the accuracy of the indexing, if you see what I mean. Such an error may relate to the "obvious" interpretation of the handwriting, or parallel, quite unrelated info from other censuses or BMD records.

As I've written previously, I have a certain level of understanding of Ancestry's approach, particularly in terms of, for the Scottish censuses, making more fields available, and allowing more flexible searches in terms of no absolute requirment for the surname field to be completed, and the ability to search on the basis of there being another name linked (on the page , or the household?, - I'm not sure......)

That's not to say that it's not the case that it still regularly happens that I have to be picked up off the floor, and allowed to calm down from my fit of hilarity, and have strong liquor adminstered to me (preferably a 30+ year-old non-chill filtered, single cask, at cask strength, Linkwood ) after seeing the latest example of the complete and utter inanities that are sometimes the output of the Ancestry sub-contractors.

But, as I will never hesitate to admit, "drink taken" is an obvious, occasional problem in terms of the output of census enumerators; as if the fading of ink, - they had to buy their own, and some obviously over-dilluted the ink powder; and that's without handwriting styles, however sober, that would challenge the top experts in terms of interpretation; so that who am I to criticise any indexer/transcriber, either in the UK or elswhere, with or without the advantage of English (or should that be Scots?) as their native language?; and with or without some basic knowledge of Scotland, placename, given and surnames, etc., etc.

That written, my opinions are well known in terms of Ancestry index errors in relation to Scottish county names, including the 18th and 19th century variants, - which all fit on one page; and, beyond that, the 900+ registration district names, - OK, maybe ca. 10 pages of a lookup list .................

Some of these Ancestry county name errors, quite simply, beggar belief; but then, they're balanced by very many others, - the percentage I know not, - that are correct.

But place yourself in the situation of someone working for an indexing sub-contractor, and it's approaching the end of a challenging 8 hour shift, then I'd argue that, despite the quality of the training that you have received, and despite the resources such as lookup lists available to you, the potential for error is considerable.

Did I hear someone say "but what about double entry?".

Aye weel, where cost is not a concern, and this applies to many FHS indexes and the various FreeCensus and similar projects, where a true double entry system is used; it will result in a substantially higher degree of accuracy.

A true double entry process involves two completely different indexers inputting the data from the same source, with a third person then checking every situation where the result of those first two inputs is different. It's a bit like good customer service telephone services, - where, if the first person can't resolve the issue, it's automatically referred to a higher level, and so on.

In this case if the third person can't resolve the conflict between the first two, quite independent inputs, then the situation goes up a level to more expert folk, i.e. a fourth person, and, beyond that, for remaining problematic entries, maybe even another level, i.e, a fifth person, even more expert as regards the source material .............

But, as can readily be appreciated, that all takes time and costs money.

When you come across a situation where it is claimed that a double-entry procedure is used, then it's worth querying the situation, as you will find, - no names, no pack drills , - that there are companies who use a somewhat different definition, - this being that one person inputs the data, and a second person then checks that first person's input, and represents that process as being a true double entry process (which it's not), - a subtle but critical difference from the true definition of the genuine double entry procedure as given above.

The latter definition of double entry might well pick up errors based on what was keyed in, i.e. the interpretation was the same, but the data keyed in was different !!, - but just think again of that 8 hour, or longer shift, and the potential for error deriving from fatigue.


Did someone out there say "But what about quality control?".

I can't speak for Ancestry.

But I can speak for ScotlandsPeople on the basis of a detailed understanding of their process involving sub-contractors, via my membership of the ScotlandsPeople User Group.

This process involves, in the beginning, a 100% quality control (QC) check by GROS of the indexing of a sample of the census involved. Based on the outcome of that initial QC check, further QC is focused on the areas highlighted by the initial QC check.

Having written all that, I'm quite amazed that I haven't even used once the dreaded term "OCR and allied software"

David