Yesterday and this morning I had a look for newer databases on Ancestry. Among these I noticed 'Border Crossings: From Mexico to U.S., 1895-1957'. Not too long ago I had found and published the names of a few people who went from Vancouver, BC to Topolobampo, Mexico in 1894. I thought I'd have a look to see if later they went to the US. And indeed, I may have found one and some relatives of another.
As I often do though, I thought I'd see how many in this database were listed as being born in Canada. I was surprised to see quite a few and even more surprised to see many were shown as born right here in British Columbia.
Very soon, I realized though that someone (or something) has confused "B.C., Mexico" (B.C. being the State of Baja California, Mexico) with "B.C., Canada" (B.C. being British Columbia, Canada).
Oh, dear! This is even sillier than that confusion of the birthplace "SOM" (for Somerset, England) being indexed as Somalia. That got fixed in a hurry as I recall.
I did send a note on to Ancestry, so will watch to see when this gets corrected. It does look to me as if there are more mistakes in this indexing - not all "Que"s mean Quebec, for instance, but - you really just have to laugh...don't you? Que Sera, Sera!
[Edited to add this note: Just in case you are wondering - Ancestry seems to be saying that 78,460 people in this database were born in British Columbia, Canada. Now a very few probably were, but the vast majority I've looked at seem to be saying they were born in Mexico. One fellow even gave his birthplace as "Agordo, Italy, Province of BL". Yes, that "BL" could be taken as BC but "Italy" is really clear.]
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