Corrections Guide for Transcribers

Introduction

This guide provides information to transcribers on how to handle corrections to the FreeBMD entries that they have transcribed. A correction is requested by a person (the "requester") searching the FreeBMD database who finds that a transcription does not correspond to what is in the GRO Index (that is, normally, the scan of the index page). FreeBMD hopes that transcribers will be willing to correct errors that they have made but transcribers can opt to not do corrections. In this case, the Syndicate Coordinator of the syndicate for which the file was transcribed will try to arrange for someone else to perform the correction. Please note, however, that once someone else has performed a correction the file containing the correction cannot be amended by the original transcriber.

Please note that some Syndicates have different processes for handling corrections than that described here but in this case you should not have found a link to this page unless you are a member of more than one syndicate. If you are unsure, please check with your Syndicate Coordinator how their syndicate handles corrections.

Ownership

When a correction request is received, FreeBMD will assign an owner to the correction. In most cases this will be the transcriber of the entry but it may be the syndicate for whom the entry was transcribed. Ownership of a correction may be changed, for example a syndicate may allocate a correction to any transcriber in the syndicate.

Correction Notifications and Reminders

Transcribers are notified by email that there are corrections waiting for them to do (that is there are corrections for which they are the owner). This email contains a link to a list of waiting corrections and clicking on one of these corrections takes you to a page that contains details of the correction. You need to login with your usual userid and password when prompted.

A correction reminder notifies you about outstanding corrections that you have been notified about but which have not been done.

Processing Corrections

When you view the details of a correction you can determine if the correction is valid and if it is then you can amend the entry either by using File Management or amending your local copy of the file using WinBMD and uploading it. Having decided that either the correction is not valid or having made the amendment you then report what you have done by clicking on the appropriate button on the web page (see right).

Please note that when viewing corrections (both the list and the details), help is often available by hovering the mouse over an item.

Note also that you should only do a correction if you can determine that the revised entry will correspond to the GRO Index. You must not make amendments based solely on what the requester has put in the correction.

The system will try to assist you by suggesting a scan (or scans) for the transcription, however it is only a suggestion and may not be correct. In particular you should use the scan from which the original was transcribed to verify that the correction corresponds to the GRO Index unless there is a better quality scan of the same source available. In some quarters there are both handwritten and typed scans available and the FreeBMD policy is that the two should be seen as completely independent attestations to the same historical event and the two should be kept and served as separate records. Therefore you should only correct an entry transcribed from a hand written scan from a hand written scan, and similarly for other types of scan.

Click the appropriate button to indicate the result of the correction (web page contains more details)

Controlling Notifications and Reminders

In order to avoid transcribers being inundated with a lot of emails about corrections FreeBMD provides a number of ways to manage the way notification are sent. Firstly, corrections can be batched up so that corrections are not notified immediately but only when a certain number have arrived or a certain period passes. Secondly, the sending of notifications can be limited to a specific number over a certain period.

Correction reminders can be configured in a similar way, allowing control over when reminders are sent. This can be based on the number of corrections outstanding, whether any corrections have been done in a specific period and how often the reminder is sent.

There are overall and syndicate defaults that apply for these values but you can set your own by clicking on Modify Your Submitter Details in File Management (or by clicking here) and then clicking on Corrections Configuration. Modify Your Submitter Details is also where you can opt out of doing corrections completely.

Membership of Multiple Syndicates

A small number of transcribers are members of multiple syndicates. If you are a member of only one syndicate this section does not apply to you.

Syndicates can organise the way they manage transcriptions as they they see fit. In particular the way they handle corrections may differ and thus corrections done for different syndicates may vary in the way transcribers should handle them. The effect of this should be that transcribers may receive notifications of corrections for different sydnicates slightly differently.

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