Genealogy Chat

Not advertising here, but the WIKI on FTF is amazing - its taken thousands of hours work by the members over there and everyone is welcome to add anything re local knowledge as the info is divided into so many sections of use. Its like a huge encyclopaedia of reference materail, well worth looking at.

Also there is a POW project, no, not Prisoners of War - but Places of Worship - members are taking photos of all the churches in their area for others to use to flesh out their trees re ancestors who were married, baptised or buried at said churches. More people taking photos would be very welcome to build up a really comprehensive record.

Glen, thanks for the info about searching the census and the 'family tree forum' site. It looks very interesting so I have just registered.

Regards Jennifer

Some of the different methods (and how the results are affected) can be seen in an illustrated guide to searching the census via Ancestry at;

http://www.familytreeforum.com/wiki/index.php/Census_Search


Pick the article called "Finding Martha", it shows (using screenshots) the search criteria, the results screens and the "how and why" she was less than easy to find in the various census returns.


Glen

I am in the process of transcribing 1961 census for a village in Dorset. In regards
to spelling errors..eg. laborer...we have to spell exactly as written. In my piece laborer is spelt many ways. Even though i know it is wrong I have to spell "as is" as i have to with names and places.
In regards to forenames/surnames it is always easier to read a difficult name if you already know what it is supposed to be. Some census takers have very curly , loopy writing and their own made up style. Marks on the census also confuse things and sometimes an educated best guess is the only option available.The transcription is then marked to alert anyone looking of the problem. This makes it difficult to find but there is no other option. Dorset has a heavy dialect. Imagine a london census taker coming down to record house holds. He would have great difficulty understanding the locals let alone spelling what he hears. eg...farmer would be heard as varma .
I have transcribed over 2,500 people and have been very careful in the process but have probubly made a few mistakes (eg. hit wrong key on board, misread etc) mistakes will always creep in to the transcribing process...

But remember it is the transcribing of census forms by hundreds of volenteers that will eventually allow you to search these census free of charge....

I have just read this post started by me in Nov 2005 - perhaps the "New Newbies" would like to read it?

Regards,
Maurice

Loopy, I take it that you have tried the obvious Prestige, If someone said Prestidge to me I would possibly hear Prestige. It was a famous name in the cutlery industry so it could be worth a try. I have no units left. so let me know if that works. Maurice

Or perhaps she (or whichever member of the household filled it in) filled it in wrong on the original form and the enumerator just copied it out. Or the enumerator copied it out wrong... Kate.

Sometimes it pays to think of how the question would have been asked to a person who could not fill in the form themselves. To the question 'Where were you born' one of my elderly rellies in 1851 must have misheard as she replied 'Clewer, Oxfordshire'. She must have thought the enumerator had asked who and where was she born as Clewer was her maiden name and she was born in Pishill, Oxfordshire.

Looking for my Martha Mary with just her first names in the 1851, I saw this name, which intrigued me: Martha E Mary Wife Twins Looked at the image and this was the family: (Names transcribed as/actual image) Zuchana Stonhold/Zacharia Stonhold Head Ann Wife/Ann Wife Wife James Wife/James do (ditto) son William Wife//William do son Lazarus Wife/Lazarus do son Martha E Mary Wife Twins/Martha & Mary do (Twins written above) daurs Worth looking at all the surnames: Head, Wife, Son, etc?! Carol ;-) Wife abt 1826 N Shoreditch Middlesex Eliza Lodgers Wife abt 1820 Lodger Birmingham Warwickshire Ellen His Wife abt 1823 St Agnes, Cornwall, England Visitor Madron Cornwall Lydia Daur abt 1838 Mary, Lancashire, England Daughter Farnworth Lancashire Elizabeth Eliza Daur of Niece abt 1838 Axminster, Devon, England Daughter Axminster Devon

If you can't find them first time, I think it is often quicker to leave the surname out altogether on ancestry and just put in first name, approx year of birth and place of birth, then look through the results for anything that looks as though it could be a version of the name you are looking for. Also, don't forget wildcards, although annoyingly enough most sites won't let you use these in the first 3 characters of a name. [I tried to tell ancestry that it is no more difficult for a computer to cope with a wildcard in the first 3 letters than anywhere else (at least on an 'exact match' search), but just got the brush-off.] Always try the family member with the least common name or most unusual birthplace! Oh, and about birthplaces - make sure to use wildcards for these so it will still get picked up if it has been mis-spelled. Kate.

Hard to beat my Charlotte Steers who became Charlotte Meins! Though when I finally found her - thank goodness the grand daughter staying with her that night was transcribed correctly as a Horstead (Ive had Horstus, Horsehead and more for that one), I could actually see why Steers had been read as Meins - the S leant over to join with the t, making it look like an awkward M. So check out M if your name start with St

Yes, my Eva HEGG transformed into a whole family of EGG's 10 yrs later !! Heather

After lots and lots of reading of old Parish Registers etc, I consider myself quite skilled at interpreting old handwriting. However, on searching for a missing GREEN ancestor, I was both annoyed and amused to find that he was where he should be - except I had read his name as Daniel GUBBIN! (Due to the Vicar's peculiar double e, which looked like 66). The same Green family were found for me on here, mistranscribed as GRACE. (A tip, when faced with seemingly unreadable handwriting - let your eyes go out of focus and take in the whole page - this sometimes makes things clearer, rather than concentrating on individual letters) Olde Crone

You can also try by entering surname but without the first letter.. Have seen Ben Gill on image but as Beng ILL on transcription. Cornelius Till as Corneliust ILL There is also Smith as MITH Brown as ROWN Jones as ONES Eunice

If you have lost a male person old enough to be in the army from the 1901 census - go to Asplin Military History via Google and search the holders of the South Africa Medal (Boer War) all serving soldiers got one. Be patient the site is a bit slow if you are not on Broadband,as it has a massive amount of information on it. Also go to War Graves via Google for fatalities of the Ist and second World Wars, Often you will find next of kin details here. Both sites are free to search. Another excellent site is Historical Directories - on this site if you have relatives following a Trade or profession you are almost certain to find them in one of the directories , again free to search and not full of spelling errors- Maurice

Victoria, Re: Charles James Barry Try: Chas.Barry (Chas is shortform ,common in London) Charlie Barry (Very common all over) easier to say !imagine calling a dog CHA - Ley two syllables actually sounds better than the on syllable for Charles. Charly Barry Charley Barry Charley J Barry C Barry C J Barry James Barry (Likely he may not have used Charles at all as it was often used by the toffs ! so try:- Jim Barry (Common nickname of James) James Charles Barry Jamie Barry Also look for Barrie, Bary ,Bery ,Berry,Berrie. Good Luck Maurice

Angela, I am very pleased that you managed to sort out at least one of yours. We had a Beellen in our tree who went missing, with a bit of help from someone on GC a few months ago, he was found shown as Bullen, two small loops making a 'u' instead of 'ee' it could easily have been taken either way. So if any of you have 'ee' substitute a 'u'. Maurice

A long winded way is to just put in a couple of known facts and leave the names boxes entirely blank. the Search then goes to Person living in such and such.,being alphabetical gives you all the weirdest name variations Also depending what you enter, Ranked searches sometimes come up with most stars and other times the least stars. Jane

Having had a look at some of handwriting on the census images I'm not at all suprised that there are mis-transcriptions - but usually when you discover one you can see why it has been translated as something else. A big thank you to all transcribers. Also a big thank you to maurice for starting this thread. I had been looking for Benjamin Hipwell and after reading this thread found him under Benjamin Benhipnell (I think on this occasion the enumerator mis -understood)

actually I'm glad ithe whole affair is transcribed and indexed, otherwise we'd have no hobby! Have any of you actually tried it?,( transcribing i mean), - have a go, its free and they welcome anyone that will 'have a go'. see what it is actually like to do it, THEN critcise! Jess , who does and hopes she gets it right (not aimed at Maurice at all)