Or almighty ****-ups, so some might call them! Seriously….
I have been finalising some research reports this week for clients and yesterday, I realised that I had failed to locate some members of their family in 1911. In fact, I have still not managed to trace some of them, despite about an hour of searching and lots of wildcards (*). However, I have located more ludicrous transcriptions, many of which I have almost had sense of humour failure over. The first of this week’s batch of nuttiness is William Hardisty who, at 84.2 years old, had very neat handwriting [Source]:
However, sadly the person transcribing his occupation failed to understand that he was a ‘re-tired milkman’, as he wrote it, and not a ‘Re Tired Miepman‘, whatever one of those is:
A record for John Whish also appears to refer to his ‘tired’-ness. As a resident of Blackford Vicarage, Wedmore, Somerset, he was a Clerk in Holy Orders (Church of England) as opposed to ‘(Church of Ghy Tired)’ as Ancestry‘s transcribers decided:
I would guess that 81-year-old James William Comerford would have been less than enamoured with the description of his occupation when it was transcribed. He was a Notary Public and Colonel (retired) Auxiliary Forces and I am sure he had no connection with ‘22 Tired Auxiliary Forces‘ – eek!:
I guess I am less surprised by the number of ‘Tired Fish Dealer‘ and ‘Tried Fish and Chip‘ shop/restaurant references than I am by ‘Tried Turner‘ who was a 28-year-old overlooker in worsted spinning:
When you look at the census schedule, that transcription can just about be forgiven, though I would hazard a guess that he was definitely called Fred by anyone who knew him. Tired was clearly not the worst insult in the world but being transcribed as ‘labourer idiot‘ when you are a ‘labourer iron foundry‘….:
Got to love these transcriptions!!!
