A word of warning
Errors in the transcribed church records
In the autumn of 2017, the Norwegian National archives started a collaboration with Ancestry, MyHeritage, and FamilySearch (AMF) to transcribe parts of the Norwegian church records. The sections in the church records that have been the focus are
- Born and baptized
- Married
- Deceased and buried
The church records from 1801 to 1815 are completed. A large number of the records from the years after 1815 have also been done. This is thanks to the effort of a large number of volunteers. They should be commended for giving their time and energy to this work. There is, however, an elephant in the room that can not be ignored.
While errors may and do occur in any product, it has turned out that the transcriptions produced by the AMF collaboration contain a disproportionally higher number of errors than records transcribed outside the AMF.
There are many different errors occurring. I have used church records where most of the farm names were either partly or completely misspelled. I have seen examples of common Norwegian first names not being recognized and/or given the wrong gender. Yesterday I used a church record from Hedmark county with several incidents where the first fadder → witness/sponsor to baptisms was identified as the father of the child.
The errors I have found make me think that it has been done by a person with little or no local knowledge of the parish where the records appear, Norwegian naming conventions, and the layout of Norwegian church records.
I would like to emphasize that I do not write this to ridicule the persons that have done these transcriptions. I write it because as things stand right now, these records may cause major confusion to anyone trying to use them. I also want those of you thinking of taking on transcription work to consider if you really have the necessary knowledge to do so. Having been dealing with Norwegian records for almost 30 years I still don’t feel confident enough to take on the transcription of a complete church record for publication. The errors also reiterate the genealogy point of always checking the original source.
As many of you will know, the Digital archives have an “error report feature” present on every page with transcribed data. I and many others have used this feature to report the many errors we find. The errors from the AMF collaboration caused so many reports that the Digital Archives has been forced to close the possibility of reporting on AMF’s transcripts of the church registers’ lists of baptized, married, and buried between approx. 1815-1938. They no longer have the capacity to do the corrections.
The Digital Archives have started a collaboration project with the users where the goal is to proofread these files from the church books. It is far better to proofread and correct entire church books than to make random corrections. This process will necessarily take some time and while we wait for this work to be completed we need to cautious when using the records.
I will revisit this case as updates on the progress are published by the Digital Archives.
Yes, I have found several errors in the transcribed Norwegian records on Ancestry but the transcribed records of the U.S. Evang. Luth. Church in Amer. are the ones that are exceptionally bad
Hello Larry
Thanks for commenting and for pointing out this. As a lot of the info on Ancestry is based on these transcriptions the errors will occur there too.
Martin
Mange Takk Martin! Some of us have noticed all the errors .. but don’t know what to do about them .. other than warn everyone to look at original documents, read the names yourself. I have started looking for who did the transcription before finding the record I’m looking for … lets me adjust my search parameters accordingly. And hope that some day .. the ELCA records at Ancestry will be fixed … that just because the records are on the same microfilm does NOT mean they are all from ONE city/county/state!
I’m glad you have pointed this issue out, Martin. I have been perplexed by some of the errors I have run into and have wondered how they have been creeping in. Especially noticeable for me have been times when farm names or kommunes, and other misspelled words occur that to me indicate the person doing the transcribing has little knowledge of the area or of Norway. It is heartening to know that the issue is well known and steps seem to be underway to resolve problems.
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And even making corrections at ancestry doesn’t produce a corrected transcript. I was notified recently that we had missed a child in a family. When I looked at the original census it was so messed up I don’t even understand what the census taker was thinking. He ran out of lines on one page so put the youngest child on the bottom line 2 pages later where there was an empty line!! That couple was old enough to be his grandparents although they were not. He was listed as their son. I made a correction 6 YEARS ago to that transcript. It’s still the same with no correction at all. If not for my note hidden in a tab no one would know and since not many people look at the 3 tabs for a transcript I doubt anyone other than I have seen my note.
wow reading all these i am afraid of asking for help , i am a rookie and would not know what is right or wrong .
Such a helpful article. Thanks! Hopefully more AMF profilers will eye Norwegian Archives themselves. Ours were poor people, who left rich records of life. They are given free, so we owe a correct account.
I began blogging on Matt Olsen several years ago, deciding NOT to view AMF until complete, to avoid bias. He left Hatfjelldal in 1887 at 11, to become Hemmingson upon US arrival. As an adult, Hemmingson claimed Wisconsin birth – but something was amiss, sending me to Norway’s archive. AMF missed Olsen, and his Norwegian birth, or an unfortunate emigration circumstance that was emotionally pivotal to the conduct of the man’s whole life. AMF is fun, but I think, puts too much out there, that is accepted as true.
Then were some small transcription errors of today’s eyes on yesterday’s script by those hired by archives. Plus, careless handling of that product by this armchair sleuth on the difference in Norwegian and American date format. Correction was issued as “Dear Granddad: If Only November Had Been August” because three months suggested a less grievous outcome to his emigration. The satisfaction was in finally getting it right, and that was greatly assisted by the awesome resource.
Though I am new to Norwegian genealogy, I did find an error on the marriage archive in Digitalarkivet. The transcribed place of birth for my ancestor was listed mistakenly as the place of birth for the marriage entry written above my ancestors’ marriage entry. The original document clearly indicates the correct birthplace. From what you indicated, I shouldn’t make an effort to notify Digitalarkivet. You said their process should find and correct the errors–eventually. I have a huge urge to “fix” it. It’s hard to do nothing. I will do as you advise, however.
Thank you for all your work and sharing of your knowledge. I’ll keep exploring your website and videos.
I have encountered several errors while using Ancestry and Family Search. I attributed to bad indexing and lack of quality control. This explains what has been going on. Thank you for clearing things up.
I’m curious if MyHeritage would provide more accurate details/information versus some of the American (Mormon) genealogy sites.
Hello Denise
Thanks for visiting my blog.
I am sorry to say that MyHeritage does have the same number of errors as any other online genealogy site.
I appreciate you respectfully highlighting that there are numerous transcription errors. We need to do that when we find errors that may impact someones research through their propagation in published works. I have already run into some of these errors, myself, but have somehow managed to avoid any severe consequences.
I have found that looking at consistent names across a persons birth, marriage and death records often leads to a reasonably correct transcription of a record by highlighting inconsistencies.
Just a thought…
Has anyone considered using a word-processor comes with a Norwegian dictionary to flag and suggest corrections in transcribed Norwegian text? I think it just might reduce some types of transcription errors for non-native speakers.