AGRHistory / Ancestry Genes Roots History Owner/Lead Researcher Researching, advising and giving historical contents for family trees.
The Importance of Original Documents It is wonderful these days, that we have the internet and so many companies uploading new documents, for us to search through, from the comfort of our very own sofa’s. However, and there is always a ‘However’! These are, in the main, transcription-based records, very few have original documents attached. Sometimes sites will have an original but not transcribed, meaning that you have to trawl through sometimes hundreds of images. Other times they have been properly transcribed and then as I’ve already mention many have part transcribed documents. Sadly, those that have only been partly transcribed, have no notification on them to say partial transcription. The problem here is not always does all the information in a document get transcribed. Often, due to the work of transcribing being conducted by volunteers or piece workers, only the bare minimum of details is recorded. This is sometimes due to the main companies only asking for basic details and not asking for the item to be fully transcribed. This may be due to costs, however the pay per view sites do charge, so it is not surprising that people think that they are getting all the details, not realising it may not be the case. With the introduction of AI doing the transcriptions, it is down to the person asking the AI to transcribe, to inform it what details need to be recorded. So again, not all details by AI are always fully transcribed. Then there are the problems with errors in transcriptions which involve but not limited to handwriting styles and quality, letter formation which has changed over centuries. Documents written in Latin or mixture of English and Latin. Words especially names and places being miss-spelt. Dates can also be problematic and often especially in double year dates recorded wrongly. The moral of the story here, if you have not already guessed, is always check, were possible, the original document. You never know what extra information or find you may make. #Genealogy #History #Documents #Transcriptions #AI #AGRHistory
