Joe Cummings 0 Report post Posted December 15, 2010 My basic question is "how accurate must an audio to text transcription be to meet an acceptable level for genealogy record purposes?" When I do a transcription now, I try to make it exactly like the audio record. The only editing I do is to eliminate the start/end clicks of the record, eliminate background noise (e.g., telephone ring or clock chimes) if possible and long pauses. I have a legend to show on the transcript special items; such as, interviewers comments, words spelled out, interviewee comments not directly pertinent to the interview, unintelligible words/phrases, clarifications in a post interview conversation, etc. Items I leave in are: coughing (noted as not pertinent); extraneous words (e.g., "ah", "I went we went they went to....", "it was in November...no December", "you don't say" (a group interview comment on someone else telling a story), and so on. I talked with someone who does medical transcriptions. She does eliminate the above examples and even corrects in the transcript mistakes made in the audio content by the dictator or getting the proper spelling and pronounciation. She said this has been legally approved for medical transcriptions. I would like to follow her methods and wonder if it would meet acceptable genealogy transcription needs. I would like to even go in and "clean-up" the audio record but that is probably not the correct thing to do. Any opinons or comments? Thanks, Joe Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
