general query to all Listers i seem to be having a problem with my search results on "Scotlandpeople online" and thought maybe other researchers might be having the same problem and offer some suggestions. Maybe this "thread" might benefit others as well Problem:#2 (1) A WIDE search across ALL Scotland for a particular surname misses some records (b/m/d). A search JUST in Aberdeenshire includes some NOT in the wide search and to further complicate things, sometimes a VERY NARROW search > JUST IN Old Machar or Aberdeen city > reveals family members NOT in the 2 other searches!!!! ?? Problem:#2 (2) Is there a problem of lost records in Aberdeen City itself during 1770-1830? Many records do not appear in search results and i know my family and others "existed" at this time. many times i find my "missing" ancestors in the IGI on the LDS website > and it says it is an "abstracted record". do the LDS films for Aberdeen City and area possibly contain records that Scotslandpeople do not have in therir daatbase? thanks to anyone replying with their thoughts Schani Biermann Canada

Schani Biermann wrote: > i seem to be having a problem with my search results on > "Scotlandpeople online" and thought maybe other researchers might be > having the same problem and offer some suggestions. Maybe this > "thread" might benefit others as well > > Problem:#2 I think that is perhaps "Problem: #1"? > (1) A WIDE search across ALL Scotland for a particular surname misses > some records (b/m/d). A search JUST in Aberdeenshire includes some > NOT in the wide search and to further complicate things, sometimes a > VERY NARROW search > JUST IN Old Machar or Aberdeen city > reveals > family members NOT in the 2 other searches!!!! ?? If your "Scotland-wide" search" is for a relatively common name like THOMSON it could well be that, as Laura suggests, you are simply getting too many hits to be displayed - it may be that with a large dataset, some part of the system "time out". > Problem:#2 > > (2) Is there a problem of lost records in Aberdeen City itself during > 1770-1830? No more so than anywhere else. But the problem is unlikely to be "lost" records. By that sort of date, particularly in major urban centres, many records were simply never created in the first place. > Many records do not appear in search results and i know my > family and others "existed" at this time. many times i find my > "missing" ancestors in the IGI on the LDS website > and it says it is > an "abstracted record". Having your baptisms and marriages recorded in the Parish Registers involved a payment to the Session Clerk, and many people reckoned they could spend the money better on the necessities of life. > do the LDS films for Aberdeen City and area possibly contain records > that Scotslandpeople do not have in therir daatbase? This is extremely unlikely. The LDS films are images of the Old Parish Registers which have, since 1855, been lodged with the Registrar General for Scotland, and Scotlandspeople is the official online arm of the Registrar General's office. Their online images were separately generated from the originals, but are taken from exactly the same source. If there is a discrepancy between Scotlandspeople and the IGI, the doubts should generally be aimed in the first instance at the IGI, which is known to contain much that is of dubious validity. That said, both Scotlandspeople and the IGI make use of indexes which have been derived from the original records by people reading the original handwritten (and sometimes unclear) Registers, and it is inevitable that errors will creep in. There are also cases where records have escaped the Registrar General's net (and therefore also failed to be picked up by the IGI) simply because of holes in the legislation under which the Registrar operated. The Act which set up civil recording of BDMs in Scotland in 1855 empowered the Registrar General to collect the registers of the Kirk of Scotland (with whom everyone was *meant* to register their baptisms and marriages) but not to gather in the registers of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, The Roman Catholic church, or the various Presbyterian splinter groups which had, over the previous century or so, operated independently of the Kirk. The Episciopal and RC Registers are still held by the relevant churches, although films of at least the RC Registers are held by the National Archives of Scotland, who also hold most of the Non-Kirk Presbyterian registers. There are also records which escaped the Registrar General because of sloppy wording of the Acts, which empowered the Registrar General to collect registers held by the Kirk's parishes, but not those held elsewhere. I have recently been transcribing a sequence of burial records for St Nicholas (the original town parish of Aberdeen) which were created and held by the Town Council, who as "patrons" of St Nicholas, maintained the church fabric and (by way of compensation) collected the moneys paid in respect of burials. These are available online at: http://www.anesfhs.org.uk/databank/ (click on "St Nicholas Burials"). and while I do not know of any equivalent "missed" records of baptism or marriage, it is not impossible that such are lurking somewhere. Another of the datasets on the above site is labelled "St Nicholas Kirk Session Accounts" and includes some records to do with Fornication and Marriage. I have not checked whether these are all dunplicated in the "official" St Nicholas Registers of Baptism and Marriage, but I would not be surprised to learn of discrepancies Gavin Bell

2009/12/13 Schani Biermann <ussenterprise1701@accesscomm.ca> wrote: Hi Schani Problem:#2 > 1!! > (1) A WIDE search across ALL Scotland for a particular surname misses some > records (b/m/d). A search JUST in Aberdeenshire includes some NOT in the > wide search and to further complicate things, sometimes a VERY NARROW search > > JUST IN Old Machar or Aberdeen city > reveals family members NOT in the 2 > other searches!!!! ?? > If you are absolutely certain that you have not changed any other criteria then the third set should be a subset of the second and those a subset of the first set. If you have clear evidence of the Search facility in Scotland's People (ScP) failing this test then you should notify ScP immediately. This would be a serious failure which they would need to analyse. They are generally very helpful and respond quickly to their "Contact Us" inputs. Send the full set of criteria you have used and at least a count of the number of hits you get at each stage. Also some examples of which items you know are missing. Problem:#2 > > (2) Is there a problem of lost records in Aberdeen City itself during > 1770-1830? Many records do not appear in search results and i know my family > and others "existed" at this time. many times i find my "missing" ancestors > in the IGI on the LDS website > and it says it is an "abstracted record". > > do the LDS films for Aberdeen City and area possibly contain records that > Scotslandpeople do not have in therir daatbase? > The LDS OPR films and the IGI are NOT matching sets. Any record that has a Cnnnnnn or Mnnnnnn reference in blue for the Batch number at the foot of the screen should appear on ScP - allowing for transcription and Indexing differences. Again if you find such a record on the IGI and not on ScP AND you have checked it on the film, then you should let ScP know, with evidence. The reason the OPR films and the IGI don't match is that there are lots of LDS Submitted record on the IGI. These have a purely numerical Batch number [nnnnnn] and are submitted by members of the church who have "researched" their family tree and have lodged their ancestors for posthumous incorporation into the church and hence into heaven. Sometimes these records are from family bibles but often they seem to be guided more by wishful thinking. In any case the source data is not available to non-members of the church. As we often say on this List [and elsewhere] you should treat LDS Submitted records with caution unless there is a supporting OPR record because you can't check back to the original source. -- Best wishes Ray ********************************************************** >From Ray Hennessy Forenames website: www.whatsinaname.net Preferred Email address: ray@whatsinaname.net Hints for Scotland's People at http://bit.ly/WIAN-SCP **********************************************************