This is a totally different question. Ancestry.com is the worse. If the index says Joan Davis but I clearly see John Davies on the actual page, I record the name as John Davies. I don’t care what the indexer wrote. This happens all the time.
On your other point, I would be careful making assumptions about how a name should be spelled, especially on census records. Yes, people were illiterate and census takers could be in a hurry. A neighbor could have been the one to provide the information. You just never know. However… I have a person in my file named Henry Pinkney McMichael. Henry is a girl. If you were to look on Ancestry.com many people have her as Henrietta because they ASSUME that must have been her real name. All of the census takers had to have been wrong, right? How about a Bible entry written by her own mother where she recorded the name as Henry. Never assume. Another example, my great grandmother was named Corrine. Or, was it Corine, Corinne, Corean? You tell me. I record it every way I see because I have no way to know how SHE spelled it (or her mother at the time of her birth). Michele Technical Support <mailto:mich...@legacyfamilytree.com> mich...@legacyfamilytree.com <http://www.legacyfamilytree.com/> http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com From: William Boswell [mailto:whbosw...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2014 11:29 AM To: LegacyUserGroup@LegacyUsers.com Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] When to use AKAs I have always wondered about obvious misspellings of names from records such as the census. I transcribe records myself if an image is available because some of the transcriptions I've found online are incorrect and completely destroy the spelling of names. Should we include the misspellings as an AKA even if our interpretation differs from that of software or human transcriptions? In the case of typewritten records, it is obvious to list the name as written even if it is known to be misspelled. I always include all AKA's because it could be important in finding new records, but I am hesitant to include those that were transcribed wrong if an image clearly shows a different spelling. I have to take into consideration, especially with the census records, that many misspellings could be attributed to the census taker and/or family member could not read or write or didn't know how to spell their own name. Bill Boswell Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyusers.com/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
