Ditto

[Thunder]

I have just been checking the 1939 Register and ancestry have listed people as stated even when it says the surname is "Ditto", surely they can see that is wrong and it just repeats the surname as in the previous line, obviously not!. It is a miracle we can find anyone.

[phsvm]

But where would all the fun be in trying to break down brick walls if common sense was used

[Thunder]

It doesn't help researchers, just to add to the 'fun' FMP have listed two women in 1921 Census with the 'Ditto' surname.

[Hardwork]

FMP are a law unto themselves it seems to me. I recently highlighted the fact that searching any particular surname and searching for, baptisms, marriages and deaths in parish registers for Norwich, Norfolk brings every event for the parameters for the whole of Norfolk, not isolating Norwich results at all. The response was that there was nothing wrong with their search function in spite of that fact that any other town or village search will only only return events for the appropriate location. It really makes me wonder who they employ in their tech department but the issue never goes further because all the customer service reps only approach the tech dept. itself, so the culprits are policing themselves, it appears. "Clueless" doesn't begin to even cover it.

[Guy]

Basic rule of transcribing write wht you see not what you think it should be.

Yes you may think the name should be the name given on the line above, but then pedants would complain it was not a true transcript.
Cheers
Guy

[Hardwork]

Though I can see your point Guy, when these records were originally created I am sure no one envisaged they would ever be indexed as individuals by name, so using "ditto" would not have been an issue in the original record. However, to transcribe them as such into a name index (a finding aid) to the census makes no sense at all. To satisfy the pedants you describe and the people who use the index as a finding aid I really cannot see why they couldn't have been transcribed and indexed under both "ditto" and the surname that the "ditto" relates to, or by the surname, and "ditto" alongside in brackets.

[Thunder]

A few years ago TNA's policy was to transcribe as seen but to add in brackets what it was believed was correct, e.g Roumania [Romania], they have alas seen to have thrown this out!.