I think what most commercial companies would aim for is to have the image of the original document alongside the transcript or index - so you can always evaluate independently the accuracy of any transcription. And you may possibly have family information that could affect what you make of the translation - compared to someone who does not know the family or the surname spelling variants as well as you. Transcription errors are universal - there were two books published on errors in the main BMD indexes - which suggested up to 2% of names in the indexes we all use could be incorrect or incomplete in some way. http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mikefost/ www.genfair.co.uk/supplier.php?sid=50 Brian -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of christene Sent: 20 March 2012 02:49 To: [email protected] Subject: [Dyfed] The Written word. We must remember transcripts are transcibed by normal everyday folk ... We rely on 1...what folk think or assume they see.... My mothers name was typed in her marriage cert then signed so there should be no room for error but she is not there on NSW BDM...as Gwyneth Crook but Gwyneth CROCK my own name if often mis written as folk assume that I cant spell my own name and numbers are often mangeled in the same way..even the error of month and day rather than day and month......in many places I see I was born on the 8th of May rather than the 5th of August. In 1 case another tree baring my family had a great uncle comeing to Australia and having a family because his 1st and 2nd nmaes had been mixed so she had not seen him buried ..within miles of his birth place errors errors every where by folk not intending malice............all we can do is tell our stories as we see them as accurately as we can......not taking short cuts and taking nothing for granted Christene no error that is my name..but with a sister Rhondda an aunt Myfanwy and an uncle Glyndyr mum Gwyneth its all ok ================================ Dyfed list http://home.clara.net/daibevan/DyfedML.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message