Genealogy Chat

been doing a bit of transcribing these last few weeks and never again will I ever moan about wrong information. Its a nighmare sometimes trying to read names etc, badly written, ink stained, damaged, etc etc. If yo dont believe me, have a go at it. they are aways looking for volunteers. Some of the names you can read the first letter, then a long squiggle and if your lucky the name ends in some letter you can determine. So you complete the records but leave blanks where you cant read it, and hope that some other poor soul will have a go at it. TED.

try the british origins viewer-it magnifies very large,then stand back away from the chair and squint !!

Having transcribed some of the 1881 census for Southwark (so my mistakes are immortalised on family search) I know exactly what you mean. The enumerator never closed the tops of his letters, so a o u all were identical. Few people were born in Southwark, so you had no local names and some were immigrants, so goodness knows how some of the surnames had been mangled.

HI Ted I've just started transcribing as well. Lucky for me my enumerator has pretty good writing so far, some of the sheets themselves are not in good nick though! Mind you with the experience I just had with fiding my 1901census family sometimes there is NO excuse!!! mine was totally transcribed wrong yet the original is plain as day! Just glad that someone else found them for me!

hi all, it was my first time at using EXEL and with all the handwritten bad records and trying to cope with EXEL it took me a day to get into the swing of things. I was doing the births for WEST DERY and some of the names and the handwriting, well it beggers belief, but I finally did just about 20 short of a thousand names which wasnt bad for 2 and half days, Saying that I enjoyed doing it, and with time will get faster, especially when I sort out EXEL SPREADSHEETS. T So you now know who to blame if you find someones name miss spelt. TED.

Ted I've been looking on the FreeBMD site about volunteering transcribers (sorry bad grammar). Do you have to be an expert, or can you just give it a go and do yer best with the handwriting. How much tuition do you get? T x

Teresa, hi love, got no training at all, saw it somewhere, cant remember where now, but emailed them and they sent me a attachment of names , handwritten, that needed typing onto a spreadsheet. WHAT i did was save the attachment, the ran copies off, then used them to copuy them onto EXEL SPREADSHEET. After I had completed I saved the spreadsheets then sent it back by email sss an attachment. easy enough but it doesnt hafl make your eyes tired. I believe FREE BMD give you some good advice and help before you start. thye get most of their information off the GRO index, you prinst them off and then work through each sheet one name at a time. Give it a go, its well worth it. TED

Thanks Ted, I just fancied doing some to help out a little. I will email them later. (maybe they should offer some sort of incentive like 10% off Archives or something, no shortage of volunteers then hehe), T x

I `m doing 1871 census and was struggling with reading it , asked hubby who gave me a tiny magnifying tube , then a friend came the other night and asked what I was doing , he said 'RIGHT CLICK AND ZOOM IN '---what a difference -now I can read it!! Ros

Ted Not meaning to be objectionable, but I hope your transcribing is more accurate than your typing in your messages on this thread! Pam

Pam, not very nice of you. I suppose you do quite a bit of transcribing? In fact its quite rude of you. hope everybody else read your message. TED

rosalyn, hi, will have a go at that next time, might save my eye strain. TED.

Sorry Ted - didn't mean to offend. I really appreciate what you and other transcribers do - honest! It was meant in a jokey way, really. Pam