> It seems there are a lot of people who are missing their relatives from > these census CDs. There have been a few messages re the number of "relatives" that cannot be found in the 1881 Canadian census on CD. Have you tried all possible spellings for the surnames? Have you been truly creative with the spelling? Have you searched just for INTOSH instead of McINTOSH? Apparently many of the Mc and Mac surnames are entered with a space between the Mc/Mac and the rest of the name. Same for names like O'Neil. Have you tried to place yourself in the position of the transcriber who is faced with indecipherable penmanship, bad ink and poorly filmed pages? Have you placed yourself in the position of the census-taker who asked for a person's name and when the person could not provide a spelling, provided his own version of spelling for the person's name? Have you searched for all of the records for a specific community and gone through it household by household---- perhaps the family was visiting with relatives on the night of the census. If there is a member of the family with an unusual first name have you searched for all people in the province, yes the whole province, who have that given name? Have you searched using the second or even the third Christian name of your "relative"? Some families never seemed to settle on which given name to use with the census taker and some people were the bearers of three, or more, given names. Every census time they hauled out a new given name!! Some people were recorded using their pet-names. My great grandmother was named Agnes, but my father always heard her called Nancy; so when I found the death info for Agnes my father insisted it was not her. If the names still can't be found on the CDs, have you ordered the census films on interlibrary loan and done your own search? Since you know what you are looking for you will see things differently than the transcriber did. My own experience-- with farmers and laborer ancestors and their relatives-- is that the people are there. But it might require more work on the researcher's part than doing a simple search on a CD. It should not matter that they were out in the fields in the day.... the census was intended to record the people who slept at a certain address. I assume they did not sleep under the haystack!! A brother of one of my direct ancestors was named Alexander. When found, after much searching on the microfilms which is as close as we can get to the original 1871 census, his given name was spelled "ELASANDIR". Would you have thought to search for that spelling in the CDs? But finding this man was important for my family research as he was the sole surviving male in that family and he was the only one for whom a racial origin was listed. The CDs might be great as a searching tool but nothing can take the place of spending hours hunched over a microfilm reader and learning about your ancestors' neighbours, etc. Norma

Norma, Yes, I have been creative with the spellings. Whole families are not recorded. They are not there. Lynn Johnson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Norma Brown" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 8:57 PM Subject: [SCTCDN] 1881 Census --- missing names??? > > It seems there are a lot of people who are missing their relatives from > > these census CDs. > > There have been a few messages re the number of "relatives" that cannot be > found in the 1881 Canadian census on CD. Have you tried all possible > spellings for the surnames? Have you been truly creative with the spelling? > Have you searched just for INTOSH instead of > McINTOSH? Apparently many of the Mc and Mac surnames are entered with a > space between the Mc/Mac and the rest of the name. Same for names like > O'Neil. Have you tried to place yourself in the position of the transcriber > who is faced with indecipherable penmanship, bad ink and poorly filmed > pages? Have you placed yourself in the position of the census-taker who > asked for a person's name and when the person could not provide a spelling, > provided his own version of spelling for the person's name? Have you > searched for all of the records for a specific community and gone through it > household by household---- perhaps the family was visiting with relatives on > the night of the census. > > If there is a member of the family with an unusual first name have you > searched for all people in the province, yes the whole province, who have > that given name? Have you searched using the second or even the third > Christian name of your "relative"? Some families never seemed to settle on > which given name to use with the census taker and some people were the > bearers of three, or more, given names. Every census time they hauled out a > new given name!! Some people were recorded using their pet-names. My great > grandmother was named Agnes, but my father always heard her called Nancy; so > when I found the death info for Agnes my father insisted it was not her. > > If the names still can't be found on the CDs, have you ordered the census > films on interlibrary loan and done your own search? Since you know what you > are looking for you will see things differently than the transcriber did. > > My own experience-- with farmers and laborer ancestors and their relatives-- > is that the people are there. But it might require more work on the > researcher's part than doing a simple search on a CD. It should not matter > that they were out in the fields in the day.... the census was intended to > record the people who slept at a certain address. I assume they did not > sleep under the haystack!! > > A brother of one of my direct ancestors was named Alexander. When found, > after much searching on the microfilms which is as close as we can get to > the original 1871 census, his given name was spelled "ELASANDIR". Would you > have thought to search for that spelling in the CDs? But finding this man > was important for my family research as he was the sole surviving male in > that family and he was the only one for whom a racial origin was listed. > > The CDs might be great as a searching tool but nothing can take the place of > spending hours hunched over a microfilm reader and learning about your > ancestors' neighbours, etc. > > Norma > > > ==== SCOTS-IN-CANADA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe: [email protected] inserting the word unsubscribe in both the subject line and the text area and using a fresh email to do it. Use -D- if you are in Digest mode. > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 >