Here’s a horror story from the front line.
The Irish Times ran a story a couple of days ago about the unveiling at the Chicago Irish consulate of a painting of Mother Jones, the firebrand union activist who was called “the most dangerous woman in America”. She was co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World, an indefatigable strike organiser, all-round nuisance to big business and (no surprise) a Corkwoman. Born c. 1837, she emigrated to Canada and then moved south to the US in the 1850s. After the loss of her husband and children and the subsequent destruction of her dressmaking business in the Great Fire of Chicago, she threw herself into union work and remade herself as the little Irish Mammy from Hell.
I’d never realised she was Irish, so started idly looking her up. Wikipedia records her as baptised Margaret in Cork in 1837 to parents Richard Harris and Ellen Cotter. So straight onto the transcription sites to have a look. No Richard Harris/Ellen Cotter entries in rootsireland.ie. On IrishGenealogy, there’s one Richard Harris/Ellen Cotter entry for the baptism of a Richard in Iveleary in 1835, a marriage for the couple also in Iveleary in 1834, but nothing else. No Margaret.
On to FindMyPast, on the familiar basis that their mistrancriptions will be different to the others. A Mary to Richard Harris/Ellen Cotter in 1846 in St Mary’s, North Cathedral, but no Margaret. The family had obviously moved into Cork city by then, but why did the earlier two searches miss this particular baptism? Because it’s in the wrong diocese for Rootsireland, Cork & Ross not Cloyne, and IrishGenealogy skipped it because they were told there’s already a transcript done locally. Which indeed there is, but not online. So the only online transcript is the one from the NLI microfilms done by Ancestry and FindMyPast.
So far, so convolutedly typical. But why no Margaret? Back to FindMyPast to search for baptisms confined to North Cathedral with a Richard and Ellen as parents between 1835 and 1846. And there’s a “Mary Hayes” in 1837 with a Richard as father and Ellen Cotter as mother. When you look at the original image of course it’s the bould Mother Jones herself, Margaret Harris, mistranscribed.
Lest you think I’m just beating up on FindMyPast for the fun of it, exactly the opposite happened the day after. I went looking for a Thomas Healy, son of Thomas and Mary Cavanagh born in Dublin in the 1850s on IrishGenealogy. No dice. Siblings aplenty, but no Thomas. Back to FindMyPast and there he is in St Michan’s in 1856, clear as day.
Why nothing on IrishGenealogy? When I looked, the entry was transcribed twice and in reverse:
The records may be convoluted but the moral is simple. If you don’t find something in a transcript, never take that as the last word.