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WARNING - errors in Culpeper Co marriage data on Ancestry.com

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WARNING - errors in Culpeper Co marriage data on Ancestry.com

Posted: 12 Jul 2013 6:16AM GMT
Classification: Query
I'm posting to warn you that one of the Virginia marriage databases online at Ancestry contains some serious errors. I discovered them when a bunch of marriages that should have taken place in Culpeper Co., VA, showed up as being in Chesterfield Co., VA. Specifically, it is this online database that contains the errors:

Jordan R. Dodd, et al. 1999. "Early American Marriages: Virginia to 1850." Precision Indexing Publ., Bountiful, UT (online at Ancestry.com).

To double-check on these marriages, I pulled out my old Broderbund Virginia marriages CD, and sure enough, they were correctly shown there as being in Culpeper Co., VA. Specifically, it is this data CD that is correct:

Jordan R. Dodd, ed. 1993. "Virginia Marriages: Early to 1850." Liahona Research, Orem, UT (Broderbund CD-229).

Some years back, Ancestry.com bought Genealogy.com, which had earlier bought Broderbund, Inc. A good deal of data currently on Ancestry came from this source, so it is no surprise that Jordan R. Dodd is listed as the compiler of both of these databases. What this says to me is that, somewhere along the line, Ancestry made an error getting these data online.

I contacted Ancestry, and their response was that they can't fix it because they don't have access to the original data. So...

CAVEAT EMPTOR when using the above Virginia marriages database at Ancestry.com, and if you have Broderbund CD-229, or some other reliable source, do use it instead!
SubjectAuthorDate Posted
Diana_Gale_Ma... 12 Jul 2013 12:16PM GMT 
murt22 12 Jul 2013 1:10PM GMT 
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