A distant cousin married a man called Fen Moore. Today when reviewing my Ancestry hints I found him transcribed as Few Moose. Obviously that transcriber had a warped opinion of Canadians
This was actually his death registration! Poor man. On one of the census they had him as Few Moore, so at least his surname was correct.!
When the local prefecture kept my (short) birth certificate, the only copy I've ever possessed (don't ask!), I had to order a replacement. When I looked at it, there were three mistakes, two of which it's difficult to believe were due to errors in transcription: 'Derer' instead of 'Derek' for my father's name (albeit amended and signed); 'Valerie' given as my mother's name (she's christened Barbara Margaret Ann!); finally, my father's occupation (railway signalman) given as 'Railway Lengthman'!
The French being sticklers for bureaucracy, they then hounded me, when I applied for my 'carte vitale', over a 'twin sister' they imagined I had (offspring of the mysterious 'Valerie'), and I was forced to ask her if there were any skeletons in the family closet that I hadn't heard about!
GRO have their moments. I visited the site to confirm age at death for a Frances who died in 1844. Despite entering the details given in their transcript I found nothing. The site record was found when the sex was changed to Male, which raises the question, is the transcript wrong?
