I didn't actually use Ancestry to find Lesley's family on the Brighton 1851 Census. Although it is there, it is mistranscribed as PATTISON. I think that it would take a lot of searching and lateral thinking to overcome that particular mistranscription. Instead, I used the SFHG's own Index to the Brighton 1851 Census which I bought years ago on fiche as each part was published (they are available on CD now). In this transcript and Index, the family is transcribed as PESTIFOTE?, which is a lot closer to Lesley's spelling of the surname. When I checked the Census schedule itself, I can quite see why the SFHG volunteer had difficulty reading it as it is very cramped writing. However, they made a very good stab at it indeed. Wherein lies the moral of the tale. I often overhear people at record offices, libraries and family history fairs saying that there is no point in buying census transcripts from Family History Societies (FHS) "because it is all online now and all you need is a subscription to a web site". My heart sinks when I hear that because the very best census transcripts and indexes will always be those that are made by interested volunteers who have a knowledge of the district that they are working on; and even then, their work is closely checked before publication by an FHS. I very much doubt that the internet search sites will ever be able to match that degree of commitment to quality control. Of course, no-one could ever afford to purchase all the Indexes that they need from FHS's and coverage is necessarily patchy because the work depends on volunteers coming forward and there has never been enough of them. That's where web sites like Ancestry, Findmypast etc score heavily and I had hoped that Familyhistoryonline would answer that challenge. However, there was trouble with that idea from the start with many FHS's refusing to sign-up to the idea and/or the contract with the Federation of Family History Societies (FFHS) and now the FFHS has sold out to Findmypast. "Big business" wins again. Best wishes Marion Woolgar Bognor Regis, West Sussex SFHG NO: 3323

Hello Everyone, Thanks for your comments Marion and I could not agree more with what you say. As you say knowledge of the district one is working on is so important, but also the language of the country concerned, e.g. English and a knowledge of at least the more common first names and surnames. I suspect that some of the transcriptions I have seen were the work of persons whose first language was not English and their geographical knowledge sadly lacking. Even English county names mistranscribed for which there is no excuse, for they can be checked in an appropriate book of reference. My wife is Welsh and as one can imagine the mistrascribing of Welsh names, places and counties is very common. However having had close attachment to Wales for nearly 50 years I can spot the mistakes fairly readily. I have several SFHG transcriptions and agree they are of an exceptionally high standard. My surname is one of the more common but it too has been mistrascribed in different ways. Best wishes to all, John Green 9502, in Ontario, Canada. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marion Woolgar" <listmail2008@btinternet.com> To: <cainjo1@postmaster.co.uk>; "lesleywhiting" <lesley.whiting3@btinternet.com>; "sfhg" <sfhg@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 08, 2008 5:25 AM Subject: Re: [SFHG] William Pestifold >I didn't actually use Ancestry to find Lesley's family on the Brighton 1851 > Census. Although it is there, it is mistranscribed as PATTISON. I think > that it would take a lot of searching and lateral thinking to overcome > that > particular mistranscription. > > Instead, I used the SFHG's own Index to the Brighton 1851 Census which I > bought years ago on fiche as each part was published (they are available > on > CD now). In this transcript and Index, the family is transcribed as > PESTIFOTE?, which is a lot closer to Lesley's spelling of the surname. > When > I checked the Census schedule itself, I can quite see why the SFHG > volunteer > had difficulty reading it as it is very cramped writing. However, they > made > a very good stab at it indeed. > > Wherein lies the moral of the tale. I often overhear people at record > offices, libraries and family history fairs saying that there is no point > in > buying census transcripts from Family History Societies (FHS) "because it > is > all online now and all you need is a subscription to a web site". My > heart > sinks when I hear that because the very best census transcripts and > indexes > will always be those that are made by interested volunteers who have a > knowledge of the district that they are working on; and even then, their > work is closely checked before publication by an FHS. I very much doubt > that the internet search sites will ever be able to match that degree of > commitment to quality control. > > Of course, no-one could ever afford to purchase all the Indexes that they > need from FHS's and coverage is necessarily patchy because the work > depends > on volunteers coming forward and there has never been enough of them. > That's where web sites like Ancestry, Findmypast etc score heavily and I > had > hoped that Familyhistoryonline would answer that challenge. However, > there > was trouble with that idea from the start with many FHS's refusing to > sign-up to the idea and/or the contract with the Federation of Family > History Societies (FFHS) and now the FFHS has sold out to Findmypast. > "Big > business" wins again. > > Best wishes > > Marion Woolgar > Bognor Regis, West Sussex > SFHG NO: 3323 > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SFHG-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message >