Following on from the point about the inconsistency in recording "missing" or "wanting" in the catalogue, I can't see a universally foolproof way of listing all missing pieces from any particular census. The best method I can see appears to be to use advanced search and enter "Missing OR Wanting" in the Notes field. This seems to hold good for 1841-1881. For 1891 and 1901, entering the same term in Scope and Contents seems to work. I've no idea how foolproof this is because I don't have any data to check the results against. Has anyone else got any comments?

This might work where a complete piece is missing (or wanting), but I've come across a piece where only part is missing (the part where my family is, naturally) and the catalogue makes no reference to this. I could see the value of some kind of user-contributed listing to cover cases like this. Arthur Kennedy ----- Original Message ----- From: "PeterGoodey" > Following on from the point about the inconsistency in recording "missing" > or "wanting" in the catalogue, I can't see a universally foolproof way of > listing all missing pieces from any particular census. > > The best method I can see appears to be to use advanced search and enter > "Missing OR Wanting" in the Notes field. This seems to hold good for > 1841-1881. For 1891 and 1901, entering the same term in Scope and Contents > seems to work. > > I've no idea how foolproof this is because I don't have any data to check > the results against. > > Has anyone else got any comments?

Do you mind me asking whether that was a whole book (or books) missing or part of a book? I'm wondering how much has to be missing before they bother to mention it in the catalogue. > -----Original Message----- > From: Arthur & Pauline Kennedy [mailto:akpak@waitrose.com] > Sent: 20 July 2005 20:32 > To: SOG-UK-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: Re: [SoG] Lost or destroyed original census books > > This might work where a complete piece is missing (or wanting), but I've > come across a piece where only part is missing (the part where my family > is, > naturally) and the catalogue makes no reference to this. I could see the > value of some kind of user-contributed listing to cover cases like this. > > Arthur Kennedy >