Genealogy Chat

My grandfather John Henry Clarke was a 9 year old scholar on 1891 census, and died in France (WW1) in 1917. Unable to locate him anywhere on 1901 census. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

One possibility is the Boer War 1899-1902, could he have been serving abroad. He would have been 17 when it started. George

"John Henry Clark(e)" brings up three aged 20 in London. Can you narrow it down to an area, or are there any relatives names he may be with?

Thank you George, if all else fails.... Marian, how come you find them and I can't? Born in Yorkshire, may be with brother William age 15.

Marian, area probably Hayes.

Charles, I had another look (via the decoder). None of the three lived with a William aged 15. They were born in Hackney, Walworth, St Martin in The Fields Wt Marian

Marian, thank you for your efforts. You did say that there were 4 in London. Would Hayes have been classed as Middlesex? Could there be one there? I have seen the 'decoder' mentioned elsewhere. Can you tell me about it? Many thanks, Charles

Charles, I only found the 3 entries I'm afraid. The decoder is available free from http://censusdecoder(.)com and is very useful once you have the hang of it. You can search for, say, all the Clarks in Hayes, then sort them by ID number. Adjacent numbers are in the same household, showing you family members. Marian

Marian, thank you very much for all your help. In the unlikely event that I can help you in any way, I will be only too happy to do so. Charles.

You are welcome Charles I have had lots of help, but I don't think I found your chap, Good luck, Marian

Try different spelling permutations of the names. I found my family eventually because the enumerator had not crossed the double "t" and it read doubl "l" John

Charles Someone told me that some of the 1901 census was transcribed in India. We find it difficult to read handwriting, how difficult it must be if English is not your native tongue. One of my relatives is listed as SELBURN instead of SELDON. It took me months to find him. Sue at Langley Vale

For Charles and anybody else. Dowmload the decoder then follow these instructions. I think it is a brilliant piece of kit. 1901 decoder Its main use is to see if 2 people you look at are in fact living in the same house. It basically saves you money downloading loads of names in the hope you get the right ones early on. 1 Press ……. SHOW BROWSER 2. Use advanced search for the names you want. (Fred Smith) 3. When you have all the ‘Fred Smiths’ you suspect then press PROCESS RESEARCH. 4. Now advance search for ‘Freda Smith’ 5. Now press process research, again for all the pages that appear 6. Do this for all the names you suspect may be your ancestors, children etc 7. When done press SHOW RESULTS 8. Now press GROUP BY 9. Then press PAGE ID 10. This will group people who live in the same house together with a ‘grey’ colouring automatically. You could try this to start with using 1 of my relatives as an example. I wanted to know whether Richard Fletcher was the Richard I was searching for, approx age 30 to 35, in fact he was 33. I knew he had a daughter called Maud, age not known. So put in Richard Fletcher with his approx age. This will produce quite a few, process each page. Then put in Maud Fletcher age 5 with a range of 5. This will produce some, press process research for each page. ( I suggest you ask for 30 names for each page) Now follow the above steps and see what you get. When I found the result, then I paid for the download and discovered his wife’s name and 4 other children. Hope that helps.

Thanks everyone for all your help. I will persevere.

john thank you for telling us how to use the decoder as didnt know how it worked and thanks to you found out my great grandmother was born in york and not in derby as first thought may get somewhere now

Charles, Where in Yorkshire was John born? Including his middle name in the search will omit valid results. Lots of times middle names weren't included on the census. If you search on John Clark*, age 19 +/- 2 years and born in york* there are many entries. Crista

John, Re. the census decoder. If you sort by personid, you don't need to pay to see all the others in the same household. This works as long as the surnames are identical. Once I find one person I need, I limit the search by adding the census place or civil parish. Sequential personids will give you the household. Crista

If you put in all the info you know about the person EXCEPT the surname you may get a hit I tried this with one of my ancestors who I knew was alive in 1891 but not turning up on the 1901, he and his family were listed under Ceilaerd instead of Clilverd