MINNIE BATTEN DREW
Hello Drew cousins!
I thought that a recent incident which happened to me would be of general interest.
Minnie Batten Drew, 80th birthday
Although I have always known for certain that my maternal grandmother Minnie Batten Drew was born on 9th August 1891 at Mousehole, Cornwall while browsing the Ancestry.com website I decided to have a look at the birth registration record. Imagine my utter astonishment! I entered the information as usual and to my absolute astonishment the General Records Office Reference Information showed Minnie Batten Drew 1891 September Quarter at Houghton (le Spring) Vol. 10a; p. 496. I knew that this information could in no way be correct. Houghton is near Durham in the far north of England and I knew full well that my great-grandparents had never been near that place. So, of course, I sent off for a copy giving the GRO reference numbers and full details of her parents' names and also adding a note that I had always thought that my grandmother had been born in Mousehole, Paul near Penzance, Cornwall and that her birth would have been registered at Penzance. I also added that in the 1891 census just a few months before her birth the family was recorded as living in Mousehole, Paul!
I thought it was worth the £7 fee to find out what was the truth. I heard nothing for well over the usual time it take sand then yesterday the certificate arrived. Of course, it gave her place of birth as Mousehole and Penzance as the office where her birth had been registered. On the pink Application for a Birth Certificate form, the GRO Ref No. was still given as 1891 Sept. HOUGHTON; Vol. 10a; p. 496, but somebody had just crossed out the place and reference numbers and had hand written in PENZANCE, Vol. 5c; p 254. There was no explanation whatsoever as to why the reference number had been wrong or as to why her birth registration is still listed under the incorrect reference place and number! I have checked it out. That is absolutely unbelievable and I ask myself just how many other people out there in the world trying to research their ancestry are being mislead like that. In my case it was OK because I knew the truth, but there are many others who rely on the ONS information to accurately trace their descent.
Geoff Adds: I looked at the FreeBMD search result, and then at the image of the register. There has been a mistranscription - not uncommom, unfortunately. (I have left quite a few Postems on FreeBMD.)
(Click on images to view better)
I thought that a recent incident which happened to me would be of general interest.
Minnie Batten Drew, 80th birthday
I thought it was worth the £7 fee to find out what was the truth. I heard nothing for well over the usual time it take sand then yesterday the certificate arrived. Of course, it gave her place of birth as Mousehole and Penzance as the office where her birth had been registered. On the pink Application for a Birth Certificate form, the GRO Ref No. was still given as 1891 Sept. HOUGHTON; Vol. 10a; p. 496, but somebody had just crossed out the place and reference numbers and had hand written in PENZANCE, Vol. 5c; p 254. There was no explanation whatsoever as to why the reference number had been wrong or as to why her birth registration is still listed under the incorrect reference place and number! I have checked it out. That is absolutely unbelievable and I ask myself just how many other people out there in the world trying to research their ancestry are being mislead like that. In my case it was OK because I knew the truth, but there are many others who rely on the ONS information to accurately trace their descent.
Geoff Adds: I looked at the FreeBMD search result, and then at the image of the register. There has been a mistranscription - not uncommom, unfortunately. (I have left quite a few Postems on FreeBMD.)
(Click on images to view better)
posted by Mary @ 8:35 pm
4 Comments:
At 9:31 am,
Geoff_D said…
Well, that is odd. I did a quick look at FreeBMD and yep, it says Houghton. Did a search with no date constraints, and she seems to be the only Minnie Batten Drew to ever have been recorded (or, at least, transcribed).
However, when you look at the image provided by FreeBMD, it clearly says Minne Batten Drew, Penzance, 5c. 254. The next entry, Robert Drew, is Houghton, 10a. 496.
At 9:38 am,
Geoff_D said…
I have left a Postem on the FreeBMD entry.
At 2:56 am,
Mary said…
Very many thanks, Geoff, for looking up the image on FreeBMD and for discovering that it was a transcription error. Also my thanks to you for entering onto the blog the photo of my grandmother and copies of her birth certificate plus the copy of the application form which was returned to me corrected. I did upload these images myself and read the message that the upload had been successful, but then no images appeared. So I don't know what I did wrong. Maybe one of these days I will get the hang of doing these blogs! I too have left a Postem on the Free BMD entry with the correct Register Office name, Volume and Page details. Let us hope that the entry will eventually get amended!
At 8:05 am,
Geoff_D said…
I suppose the lesson to us all is - check the image whenever possible. Census transcriptions are the worst - there are Drew names transrcibed as Iven. My Essex Brightwell names are hidden under Brightwall in at least one Census.
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