I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times with the LancsBMD indexes. One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common forename and Registration District. I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they made me notice them. I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there may be a discrepancy. Many thanks Brian Horridge

I would suggest human error in misreading the date at the top of the page. A badly written 5 can look like 6 and vice versa. Try to check several entries that came before or after the discrepencies to see if they suffer from the same fate. if so, You may need to check the parish registers for baptisms ( if Martha is baptised in 1875 - then the 1876 date is wrong and so on) I came across a census entry once where the transcriber had recorded the census as the wrong year 1910 instead of 1920. I reported it and that entire batch of transcriptions were corrected . Since you say this is occurring for several entries, it could be that the indexer or transcriber just wrote the wrong year on the page and hence the next page and so on Marie (GOONS 5318) Bringing the world together one surname at a time. 'A Pepler Name' http://pepler.tribalpages.com 'Hedgerow - the Ancestors' http://cranberry.tribalpages.com Pepler DNA Study http://www.familytreedna.com/public/pepler-ow/ 'Scroops, Scropes and Scroopes' http://dentonlk.tribalpages.com ________________________________ From: Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> To: "goons@rootsweb.com" <goons@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 2:22 PM Subject: [G] Lancs BMD / GRO indexes oddity I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times with the LancsBMD indexes. One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common forename and Registration District. I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they made me notice them. I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there may be a discrepancy. Many thanks Brian Horridge _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Hi Brian >From the example you give could they be December 1875 births registered within 42 days in January /Feb 1876 Regards Richard -----Original Message----- From: goons-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:goons-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Brian Horridge via Sent: 22 January 2015 19:22 To: goons@rootsweb.com Subject: [G] Lancs BMD / GRO indexes oddity I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times with the LancsBMD indexes. One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common forename and Registration District. I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they made me notice them. I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there may be a discrepancy. Many thanks Brian Horridge _____________________________________________ RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Brian: The GRO indexes are indexes of birth registrations, not of births. So a birth that took place in, say, December but was not registered until January or February will appear in the following year's index. I don't know how the LancsBMD entries are indexed, but if they are indexed by the actual date of birth that would explain the apparent discrepancy. Paul On 22 January 2015 at 19:22, Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: > I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times > with the LancsBMD indexes. > > One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using > both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore > cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match > LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where > the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm > fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common > forename and Registration District. > > I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's > original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's > quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. > > One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - > registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). > > If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late > submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they > made me notice them. > > I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers > who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there > may be a discrepancy. > > Many thanks > > Brian Horridge > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Firstly, thanks to all who have replied so quickly. I had assumed that the LancsBMD indexes were based on the original books and had not considered they may have re-used local indexes created by the registrar for their local use. Also, that they were based on the date of registration not the date of birth (a viewpoint biased by my much greater experience of marriage registers where, in theory, the date of event and date of registration is (or should be!!) the same). It would satisfy my curiosity to have confirmed the origins of LancsBMD indexes but the upshot is the same in that we just need to be aware of possible discrepancies between different "official" sources. Again, many thanks Brian On 22/01/2015 22:56, Paul Prescott wrote: > Brian: > > The GRO indexes are indexes of birth registrations, not of births. So > a birth that took place in, say, December but was not registered until > January or February will appear in the following year's index. > > I don't know how the LancsBMD entries are indexed, but if they are > indexed by the actual date of birth that would explain the apparent > discrepancy. > > Paul > > > > > > On 22 January 2015 at 19:22, Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: >> I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times >> with the LancsBMD indexes. >> >> One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using >> both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore >> cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match >> LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where >> the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm >> fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common >> forename and Registration District. >> >> I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's >> original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's >> quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. >> >> One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - >> registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). >> >> If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late >> submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they >> made me notice them. >> >> I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers >> who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there >> may be a discrepancy. >> >> Many thanks >> >> Brian Horridge >> >> _____________________________________________ >> >> RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Is it not something as simple as the fact that the LancashireBMD uses actual date of event, and GRO uses quarter of registration? In your example, if Martha Horridge was born late December 1875, it may well have been registered first quarter of 1876. Corinne Curtis #5579 On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 7:22 PM, Brian Horridge via <goons@rootsweb.com> wrote: > I wonder if anyone can help with an oddity I've noticed several times > with the LancsBMD indexes. > > One of the many tasks I'm undertaking is building family trees using > both the GRO indexes and the LancsBMD indexes and therefore > cross-referencing these 2 indexes. In majority of cases, I can match > LancsBMD entries with the GRO index but I have noticed quite a few where > the LancsBMD entry is a year earlier than the equivalent GRO index. I'm > fairly confident they are about the same person due to an non-common > forename and Registration District. > > I understand the LancsBMD entries are taken from the Registrar's > original registers and the GRO indexes are based on the Registrar's > quarterly returns so I would have expected them to be the same. > > One specific example is a Martha Horridge born 1875 (Lancs BMD - > registers at Wigan & Leigh) or Q1 1876 Wigan RD(FBMD/GRO). > > If it was just one or two entries, I could accept they were late > submissions / transcription errors but there have been so many that they > made me notice them. > > I am in no way criticising the excellent effort made by the volunteers > who have done all the effort - I am just trying to understand why there > may be a discrepancy. > > Many thanks > > Brian Horridge > > _____________________________________________ > > RootsWeb lists - surnames, regions, software, etc http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GOONS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message