Peter, I used Ancestry and the 1841 census and put in James, no surname, born in 1837 in Staffordshire. Then its a question of going through the pages which is OK for a name like James and a possible surname beginning with either A or Z but more time consuming if it's M. The more unusual the christian name the better because the search engine quickly moves on to different birth years. The method works reasonably well with births from about 1835 but the earlier the birth the more possible names and the system won't move on to years either side of your target until it has exhausted all options in the one year. We have also had success when working out what the transcriber might have put in e.g. looking for Stilliard and the transcriber put Hilliard. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter R Booth" <pbo08596@bigpond.net.au> To: <staffordshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 11:56 PM Subject: Re: [STAFFORDSHIRE] Goss family Uttoxeter > Richard, > > Brilliant work. And heaps of perseverance. Would you mind letting us in > on how you found it. > > I tried surname variants and occupation at Find My Past. And obviously > Gos* at Ancestry wouldn't work for Gorse. > > We might all learn something. I'll bet in the end it was simple. > > Peter > > ****************************** > ATTENTION TO ALL:- When replying please remove the details that do not > apply to your mail and change the SUBJECT LINE for best useage of ARCHIVED > MATERIALS. > ------------------------------- > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > STAFFORDSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >