Dear Ancestry, where or how should I report an error like this that needs to be fixed? This man was not born in 1944 if he enlisted in the Army in 1939! (see attached file) According to the 1930 census, his birth date was abt 1917.

Everyone, please don't hijack this post to complain about Ancestry, note other stupid mistakes, tell me how I should not hold my breath waiting for an answer from Ancestry, or anything else. In fact, please don't anyone reply but a staff member. I really would like to hear from a staff member on what the proper procedure is to report something like this. This is different than databases which contain images of actual records where one can check what is actually on the image.

Thanks for your cooperation. (And please don't blast me for asking people not to reply, either! lol)
Jo

The error may not be ancestry's, I went to footnote.com and did a search for Lochlion Hamp and footnote has his birthdate as 1844. I also found a thread at findagrave.com about Mr Hamp and he died in 1944, so perhaps that is how the error got into the index.

When you view the record, there are options to add comments, I urge you to add a comment. Also, at the top of the screen on any page is the help button, and from there you can contact customer service, however I have no idea if they can help with this or not.

The problem is not ancestry's. It lies either with the original record or NARA's transcription of the record.

If you go to the following NARA link, you will find 1,102 men who enlisted in the Army ca. 1938 - 1946 and were reported as having been born in "44". Since these records were electronically created in 2002, one would think that NARA would not perpetuate the Y2K problem, but evidently the date field consisted of 2 characters.

http://aad.archives.gov/aad/display-partial-records.jsp?dt=8...

I don't think it's a Y2K problem. He could not have been born in 1844 and enlisted in 1939 as he would have been 95 years old.

For all of your attempts to show us how smart you are, Jo, you fail miserably.

Had you even bothered to look at Ancestry's Source Information for that database, you would know that the data is from the "Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946".

You should also have seen the Page Tools to "Add Alternate Information" and "Leave A Comment".

Historical record errors cannot be "fixed"; they can only be annotated. Ancestry has provided the means to do just that.

What more do you want?

I did see all those.

My question was how or where to report it to Ancestry and I didn't say what the "fix" should be, it could be as simple as an explanation in Ancestry's Source Information for that database.

I specifically asked not to hear from people like you.

I think you miss the earlier points. Ancestry did not create the index, and they do not have the original records. They cannot verify or re-check the suspicious data and would not be interested in such errors being reported to them.

But, best of luck in trying to change the system.

I didn't miss them but NARA has "44" listed in the date of birth field. Apparently Footnote interpreted that as 1844 and Ancestry as 1944. I think Ancestry is responsible for it's own index and should at least put an explanation in their Source Information along with their explanation about the height and weight fields.

I know Ancestry is not interested in hearing about errors in their indexes but I don't like the idea of them just leaving it to us to add a comment as that makes us responsible for it when it should be Ancestry.

All Ancestry did was upload the data and index provided by NARA. Ancestry.com is no more responsible for errors in this database than it is for a book with genealogical errors or a newspaper with a marriage notice that misspells the name of one of the parties to a marriage.

I would not expect a caveat regarding possible errors by Ancestry.com with every database explanation. Any material in such secondary or tertiary sources would be expected to be verified or disproved by the user, with evidence from other sources as SOP.

My message was in response to gratop who indicated that footnote had the same record but indicated he was born in 1844.