I do a lot of my research online and I’m so grateful for the amazing digitization that has been done of genealogy documents. I’m frequently astounded by the high quality of the scans. It’s a little hard to imagine a genealogy life before this digitizing. (Hats off to those of you who did genealogy research prior to the internet!)
But every now and then I come across a document that was poorly scanned. It happened recently when I downloaded from Ancestry a death certificate for my great grandfather’s brother, Joseph Taylor Rasco (1872-1964). It’s a typewritten death certificate, which is always nice. But the scan was blurry. It was clear enough that I knew it was him, but too blurry to glean information without difficulty.
So I decided to look to see whether Family Search had a different scan of the same document. A few clicks later, I pulled up a crystal clear version of the same document.
Here they are side by side (click the photo to see them larger):
It was a good reminder to me to look a little harder if I come across a scan of a document whose quality makes it hard to read. I may not find a better one, but it’s worth a try!
Cathy Meder-Dempsey says
August 29, 2018 at 2:47 amGreat tip, Janine. I’ve had the same issue with the 1880 census on Ancestry. On FamilySearch I found much better images.
Janine Adams says
August 29, 2018 at 6:33 pmGood to know. Thanks, Cathy!
Vickie Sheridan says
August 29, 2018 at 2:50 pmWow what a difference. That is a good reminder to check both sites. I have seen bad scans of some agricultural census records for my great grandfather. I need to check Family Search to see if they have better versions. Thanks!
Janine Adams says
August 29, 2018 at 6:27 pmSo glad you found that reminder helpful!
Lisa Gorrell says
August 30, 2018 at 4:30 amI have often found better scans of WWI draft on FamilySearch.
Janine Adams says
October 7, 2018 at 6:31 pmGood to know, Lisa. Thanks!
Kay Arnold says
October 2, 2018 at 11:58 pmI would like to urge all who find bad images on ancestry,com to report them. I have been assured that they do occasionally go back and rescan or improve documents – probably not as quickly or frequently as we would like – but it won’t be done at all if we don’t report the problems. Same with incorrect transcriptions/indexing of documents.
Janine Adams says
October 7, 2018 at 6:31 pmGood point, Kay. Thank you! I hadn’t thought about reporting them.