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James E Heg
Member of honor
USA
135 Posts |
 Posted - 29/12/2003 : 21:06:37
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I have been checking Ancestory.com's new passenger list service against the outstanding service offered here. At first, I thought I ahd discovered a bonanza; however, it was fool's gold. The errors in transcription at Ancestory are beyond belief! Examples: ship Zephyr (1851) appears as Teplier. It lists 63 Pass. Your list says 57. Ship Ebenezer (1851) appears as Eleneser, 78 pass. Bark Christiana (1851) appears as Bores Christeona, Incognito as Mcagruto - and so on. The transcription of names is an abomination. Once in a while you can make a cross-reference by age or sex but most are beyond recognition for anyone seeking a Norwegian ancestor. Hey gang - this service costs $50 a year!!
I did find a few you do not have: Ship EDMUND Bremen to NY, 15 Jan 1851 Passenger t. fr. Hammer, M, 26 (line 10, Roll 195, List #48; Ship Wm PENN Liverpool to NY 15 Nov 1851 Passenger O. Hotter M 36 (line 43, roll207, list # 1676), plus a couple of other single passenger arrivals.
For Boston, I found several lists, most have no ship's name or port of departure, but do provide date of arrival and age. I will mail these to Børge. They may provide a clue to some seeker, if all else fails, provided you can decipher the names given. A long list for an August 9, 1847 arrival, August 9 and October25 1841 arrivals, etc.
Let me know if this effort is worth while. Regards. Jim |
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Jo Anne Sadler
Norway Heritage Veteran
USA
1100 Posts |
Posted - 30/12/2003 : 02:29:13
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Hi Jim:
I could have written this posting. I contacted Ancestry.com about a month ago about these same misspellings, they said that they would forward my email it to the powers that be. I note today that these names do not come up on a search, hopefully, they are correcting their files and rechecking the transcribing.
As far as the passenger names go, as a transcriber, I am sympathetic to the trials of trying to figure out names. But as I told Ancestry.com, at least they could get the names of the ships correct and it seems that their transcribers do not have any examples of 19th century handwriting, especially Spencerian; the errors reflect this lack of reference.
We are only transcribing Norwegian passengers so the numbers on their list and our list will not always be the same. I am starting to make a note at the bottom of the list indicating the total number of passengers, not just the number of Norwegian passengers.
After all is said and done, it is BETTER THAN NOTHING  and one does have access to the actual manifest. Having the New York unindexed years put on line is a well needed resource. Once I get done with my current batch of passenger manifests transcriptions, I can get my copies online. I think they are up to 1868. Unlike this site which is entirely done by volunteers, Ancestry does have to pay for all of the transcribing.
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Borge
Veteran Moderator
Norway
1297 Posts |
Posted - 30/12/2003 : 14:28:28
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Hi Jim and Jo Anne
Yes, it is true for sure that transcribing from old handwritten sources is not an easy task. Actually it is quite hard work and takes a lot of time. Errors are inevitable, but if you are experienced and have knowledge about the subject you are studying, errors will be kept to a minimum. When working on these old lists, experience and knowledge are gained with the help of passion. As we know, all of us working on the project here are doing it because we enjoy it, because we are passionate about this. We are not doing it to make money, but spend money on it because we like doing it. That is probably one of the greatest differences between commercial giants and NorwayHeritage. As long as we all enjoy doing this stuff, the site will keep on developing. Some contributes with their labor, others with material and yet others again by donating to help out with the financial bit of running the web site. Thanks to this, we can offer people free access to high quality genealogy and history.
Nothing more comes out of it than what is put into it! Thanks to you both, and many others, we can keep it growing. It is a pity that not all people show their appreciation for what they find on this site a little more.
Those lists that Jim found, Zephyr, Ebenezer, Christiana and Incognito were "Norwegians only" lists, so I don't know how they came up with those numbers, if not the copies that I have of the lists are missing something. |
Børge Solem |
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New York and Boston Lists
