“Wrong”? I did not associate Man to the U.K. I used that as a simple reference of misnomer. Truth be told the Mormons’ general index puts Man under British Isles. Their library in Salt Lake City has an entire floor designated British Isles – not U.K., not G.B. and definitely not England. Quite impressive and user friendly having hard documents at hand pertaining to Man in their own dedicated section within the British Isles floor. All on the same floor as British Isles microfilm – Man included.

Any suspicion about postal services influencing perception of Man is just that – suspicion. U.S. Postal Service manuals and instructions are quite clear spelling out Man comes under G.B. for their purposes.

Blame the Mormons or blame those who use their resources? Errors in how records are classified abound. That becomes quite clear in pulling and reviewing online records not just for Man but other places in the world too. Transcription and cataloguing errors with Mormon records are part of the problem. User input is a big problem I find. Just the other day I stumbled across a person entered in Family Search as being Canadian born with the same name as my great grandfather. Showed this person being born in Douglas, Manitoba Canada (an actual place). Mother shown with the same maiden name, Mylchreest, as my gg grandmother. I have Mylchreest and Clucas relatives in Canada so I decided to look further. Not someone else – it was my great grandfather born Malew. Guess the Mormons could be blamed because they provide a system that allowed a user to misidentify and enter great grandpa erroneously.

Historically many of us can remember when research involved much more than a quick online search. When squinting at microfilm was a luxury. Nowadays the first thing pulled online is too often collected, entered into an online tree and cut and pasted from there – without any attempt to verify. Someone enters Isle of Man, England – someone else sees that and cuts and pastes it verbatim. And the error perpetuates and grows.
Naivety of geography is a contemporary problem. Doubtful it will improve. Blame for the problem is multi-faceted.

Now I have to get back to a more serious Manx identity problem. Have to get to the bottom of why my beloved Vulfix “Old Original” shaving brush is indelibly marked “Hand Made in England” when those great brushes are made on THE island. Might be a Mormon plot ;)