Family Historian User Group

Over the last few weeks I have found a number of people in my tree who were born in Hong Kong circa 1890 (per Civil Service birth records, etc). After they returned to the UK I have found Census records for them, but the transcript of these on FMP shows Place of Birth as China, although the underlying / attached schedule clearly shows Hong Kong.

I have not taken this up with FMP yet, but surely a transcript should be exactly that rather than showing a "politically correct" version of a place - we don't see transcripts of documents referencing old English counties showing the modern name / location so surely the same should apply to countries. Just wondering what others think before I raise this with FMP.

Is it definitely a transcript or is it an index?

It is the transcript of a 1901 Census, with the attached image (the one listing a group of houses and the individuals in them) clearly showing Hong Kong as the place of birth.

FMP's transcripts include information that was not on the original image so are not a strict transcript
for example from 1851
Birth Place Marldon Devon becomes Marldon, Devon, England
Year of birth is added, occupation and infirmity are left out
Place Church Street Paington becomes Church Street, Paington, Totnes, Devon, England

To be consistent Hong Kong should perhaps become Hong Kong China?

David, thats why I suspect they shouldn't be viewed as transcripts but rather the terms from the original record that have been indexed (and normalised). I could be wrong.

FMP's understanding of the word "Transcript" is not necessarily one we'd agree with. I tune out their word and substitute "Index"...

Adrian, two minds with a single thought

On the other hand FMP themselves seem to think they are transcripts. When you report an error it says "We can only amend transcriptions where they fail to reflect what was actually written in the original record." (Their italics, not mine!)

So if they have transcribed/indexed (whatever you want to call it) Hong Kong as China they have not followed their own rules and anyone would be entirely justified in reporting this as an error.

Interestingly when I chose the "Report an Error" option, the resulting screen showed "Birth Place" as China and, on the next row, "Birth Place other as transcribed" equal to Hong Kong!. I will now contact their customer services people to try and establish what this is supposed to mean, although I suspect I won't get far!.