Ancestry Errors Wiki

Many of you may know that I’ve been researching the Huber families of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I’ve been recently focusing on the early settlers along Pequea Creek in Conestoga, Martic, Lampeter and Strasburg townships. Census records have been one of the resources from which I’ve been compiling data. To my disappointment, the 1820 census for Conestoga Township is apparently not on Ancestry.com.  Yet, from all the information I’ve looked at, those records should exist.

This would hardly be the first time I’ve found an error in the census records—and I’m not just talking a transcription error. Those are all too common, but easily addressed (thank goodness!). No, I’m talking mislabeled or misplaced records. So, when I saw that an Ancestry Errors Wiki had been created, I was actually relieved. First, that I wasn’t only one experiencing these kinds of problems and second that there was going to be a means of finding out about these errors!

Here’s what Michael Hait, creator of the wiki, had to say about it.

For this reason, I have created the Ancestry Errors Wiki. This wiki will provide a hub for genealogists to notify other genealogists of errors that exist on various subscription genealogy websites. In time, these errors may be corrected, but until then, researchers should be able to search for any known existing errors, and adjust their research accordingly.

The purpose of this site is not to report indexing errors. Both Ancestry and Footnote contain effective internal mechanisms for amending and modifying indexing errors. This site is for the reporting of imaging or programming errors only.

The site uses the wiki platform, so that any user can create and edit content. This will allow the site to include information based on the research experience of the whole online genealogy community.

I would like to invite all genealogists to visit the site and add any errors of which they are aware. Only with all of our help will this site be a successful and useful resource.

Visit the “Ancestry Errors Wiki” at http://ancestryerrors.wikia.com/wiki/Ancestry_Errors_Wiki. For more information, contact Michael Hait, CG, at michael.hait@hotmail.com.

So, if you’re having problems locating records that should be there, head over to the wiki and find out if someone else has had that problem, too. There might even be a solution. If I can find these records for Conestoga Township, I’ll be posting about them.