Yes, scans of original documents are the most reliable -- but how reliable is the original document?

 

Errors sometimes occur in the creation of the document! 

 

Example:  My g-gm's death certificate has a misspelling of her surname; the name was spelled the way her daughter, with whom she lived, insisted upon spelling it, but not how my g-gm spelled it during her lifetime.

 

The informant was my grandmother (i.e., my g-gm's daughter-in-law), who spelled her own married surname the "correct" way.  That my gm would manage to misspell what was her own surname is unlikely.  I do believe that the error was in the original hospital admission, which likely was attended to by her daughter (i.e., my great-aunt), who at the time (mis)spelled my g-gm's surname the same way she always (mis)spelled her own.

 

This has posed challenges in locating my g-gm's death certificate on Ancestry.com.

 

-- KHR

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Ken Ryesky
Petach Tikva, ISRAEL
kenneth.ryesky@...

Belarus:  Gomel:  RAISKY, SHKOLNIK(OV), ARONOV, AEROV

Ukraine:  Yelizavetgrad:  Broad/Brodsky (also Odessa), Gertzig/Gertzog
Ukraine/Russia/Turkey:  Yevpatoriya:  Israelson, Arshenov