Well, now I know I am not nuts! I went on line to google Y Somme Picardie because it kept popping up as a place of death for some very ancient ancestors and it didn't make sense! I just wanted to know where the place was. I am also getting those "Indiana 1612" type death dates . This almost sounds like a virus or something. This is a new problem for me, but I am relieved to know it is happening to others. Have much editing to do as a result.
The TB hospital does make some sense, but what a distance to go. I have to believe that 'unknown' has been some how translated as the "Y" and then auto links to Somme Picardie. Just too bizarre that it is happening to so many of us.

The "Y, Somme, Picardie" anomaly is one that I have repeatedly encountered for more than a year. However, I only found this Board today. Since my discovery I've scoured the 30-some postings and have been impressed by the creative thought contained there.

As for the suppositions offered on the "Y, Somme, Picardie" anomaly I will readily concede that there exists a modicum of just plain sloppy work in not checking on auto fill features, and perhaps more likely, downloading entries without paying much attention to them. In that regard, the "error" will be compounded overtime — hampered only by those amongst us who, like myself, delete the offending entry when we find it in the Place of Death field.

Alarmingly, when returning to individual records upon which I was working I have found the "Y, Somme, Picardie" anomaly in Place of Death field where previously the field was blank. Yes, the anomaly could have been entered by another member. However, I don't recall reading of a single instance where someone intentionally recorded "Y, Somme, Picardie, France" in a Place of Death field.

Why don't we also find a certain number of instances of "Y, Somme, Picardie, France" in Place of Birth fields? After all there must have been some support in this obscure village to service to the deluges of tubercular patients streaming like lemmings, or the legion of fallen soldiers? Both possibilities suggested by well-intentioned members groping for an explanation to this troubling anomaly.

We are finding this inexplicable anomaly across the board. From medieval Britons, to colonial Virginians, rural Kentuckians, and merchants in China! What I've learned on this Board only confirms my conclusions. While I am unable to compile empirical data to support these conclusions we are faced with a seemingly random pattern where "Y, Somme, Picardie, France" is entered only in the Place of Death field, not Place of Birth, or Place of Marriage fields.

There would seem to be only two alternatives which would fit the "Y, Somme, Picardie" anomaly. Either there is a bug in Ancestry's software, or someone has hacked their code and planted the anomaly. What was it that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's greatest character told us? "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

It is difficult for us to completely eliminate the impossible. That is the responsibility of Ancestry. If someone has hacked-in and planted this anomaly, however irritating, it points to a weakness in system security that could be exploited by a hacker who is less playful and more destructive. In this scenario subscribers data could be compromised, or deleted.

With Ancestry's system security at stake I find their banal and benign responses reported on this Board to be recklessly cavalier. Come on people, subscribers are going to have to wake-up and smell the coffee! We need to write Ancestry and hold them to a higher standard of care and responsiveness. I'm registering my concern tonight.

They are really helpfull at selling new software aren't they. They're also good at incompatable updates which of course prompts you to purchase new versions.

I like this theory. There are way too many incidences scattered all through time and from all over the world.
I suspect that GEDCOM files sometimes insert symbols and could misinterpet information.

I think the poster who pointed to the possibility that "Yes" could somehow get picked up as "Y" through the Ancestry software is on the right track. I have Higgins and Weatherbees in 1700's Nova Scotia with the place of death listed as "Y, Somme..." and the evidence throughout this thread suggests that many others from many places and times have this same anomaly, so I'm definitely removing this data from my tree until firm documentation surfaces to confirm this.

I know how easy it is to accidentally pick the wrong location from the list offered by the software - I've done it myself when I'm tired and found it in many other trees, when comparing persons I am sure were born in a town in the UK or Canada, but the same village name with a US location shows up in another person's tree.

As fantastic as it is to share and access so much genealogical data through computers, it also can be a real curse when we get into such large amounts of data that we can't verify the documentation for each person in a methodical way. Glad to see others have been wrestling with the same situation. I suggest we put "Y, Somme" to bed until better evidence is unearthed.

Many of my ancestors are listed to have died here as well. I am thinking that this must be some sort of mistake - I am sure all my ancestors from Staffordshire didn't go to this French town to die! :) The theory that a "y" meaning "yes" in a death field has gotten picked up and changed to Y, Somme sounds reasonable to me.

I have a Nancy Estep, of NC, USA, born 1770, who died there.

Me too it is very stors as many of my ancestors including a woman died there.

It is quite strange that so many people have ancestors that wound up buried in Y, Somme, Picardie, France. Provided my findings are accurate, both my great-grandmother and one of her daughters were buried in Y. Must be one heck of a large cemetery.

Jim Lovell

I also found this strange occurrence in my tree, crawfords started in the 1080 and it continued to 1780