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BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 7 Mar 2014 11:50AM GMT
Classification: Lookup
Could anyone explain why the county name for the various Durham registration districts is shown as "Cumberland"? The Durham registration districts are within the county of Durham (in north east England). Cumberland (now Cumbria) is on the opposite side of the country (north west England).

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 6 Apr 2014 12:37PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 6 Apr 2014 12:38PM GMT
Simple! Ancestry are an American company who know very little about the geography of Britain. They then ignore people like us who point out these errors. I've been reporting them directly to Ancestry for years and got very little response.

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 24 Nov 2014 10:05PM GMT
Classification: Query

Hi jimelliott1310, which collection is this?

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 24 Nov 2014 11:17PM GMT
Classification: Query
Hi Mike,

Wow, this is such an old topic I'd forgotten about it!! It was just that on many of Ancestry's BMD records, the "inferred county" appertaining to many Durham registration district entries is shown as Cumberland rather than (County) Durham. It has never been corrected, so when scrolling quickly through search results it is best to avoid looking at the "inferred county" and concentrate on the registration district (or nearby ones) that you are interested in. If the counties were correct, it would be much easier to use them because relevant registration districts are not always obvious.

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 25 Nov 2014 2:32PM GMT
Classification: Query

You don't have a link to an example do you? I looked up a couple of examples and didn't find a clear case.

To give you some background, I work in the Ancestry Dublin office and one of the things we are looking into is how we might improve locations across UK & Ireland.

Thanks,
Mike

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 25 Nov 2014 4:44PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 25 Nov 2014 4:45PM GMT
Hi Mike,

The following links illustrate some random examples of incorrect counties, even though they do not refer to the Durham/Cumberland examples I referred to in my initial post:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=...

(NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE WAS IN NORTHUMBERLAND, NOT CUMBERLAND)

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=...

(MIDDLESBROUGH WAS IN YORKSHIRE NORTH RIDING, NOT EAST RIDING)

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&db=...

(NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE WAS IN NORTHUMBERLAND, NOT WESTMORLAND)

These are just three random examples generated by doing a search of one of the surnames in my family tree. They aren't in fact my relatives but could be misleading for those searching for them by county, and I have come across countless examples in my searching. I am not certain whether the problem is confined to the north east of England.

Hope this helps.

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 25 Nov 2014 5:09PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Nov 2014 1:19AM GMT
DEVON is at times shown as DEVONSHIRE there is no county town of devon so records should be shown as Devon only.

on another note and i have raised this over the phone, here and on email. the ancestry software is cropping the names of the gro images making it impossible to find names from about the last 1/3 of the images with out doing it manually by looking at the image themselves then when you do find it there is no corresponding transcriptions. this is happening across all the images! add to the fact that the transcriptions taken from freebmd are woefully out of date also makes things difficult as there are allot of transcription errors and missing ones that are now corrected and included on freebmd so we have to link records out side of ancestry.

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 25 Nov 2014 8:16PM GMT
Classification: Query
I looked up my own birth...

I was born in Shaftesbury in Dorset- registration district is Sturminster.

So far so good until you read that the county is BUCKINGHAMSHIRE!!!

Again the other side of the country - I reported this years ago and nothing was done

Fiona

Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 1 Dec 2014 11:35PM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 1 Dec 2014 11:43PM GMT
Further to my previous post here is a image that shows some inconsistencies within the index.

Croydon straddles the administration areas of Surrey, Kent and (greater) London dependent on its boughs but as Croydon is mainly within Surrey and (greater) London it should be shown as one or the other with a possible Kent added for those of us who are aware of county boundaries (some of addington & west wickham area are in Kent but covered by Croydon government offices but covered by Kent health and emergency services). yes its one of those awkward ones but it is differently wrong to show Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Essex!

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=onsbirth84&a...
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Re: BMD Registration Counties on Ancestry

Posted: 2 Dec 2014 11:54AM GMT
Classification: Query

Thanks for the examples everyone. We are starting a review of how we handle locations in different places and these provide us with some very concrete examples to use in our reviews.

Feel free to contribute more on the thread. I am following it so I get an alert when there are new replies.

Thanks,
Mike
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