Thank you, Roy, this is so true! Very helpful info for those of us starting our research for ancestors in the various online listings. EE -----Original Message----- From: yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of roy.stockdill@btinternet.com Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 1:22 AM As promised..... This is a very common problem, especially when an individual is found in one census but not in another. It´s important to remember that census returns can contain many errors of mistranscription and indexing, plus enumerator´s errors and the fact that information often varies, sometimes wildly, from one census to another. But remember also that transcribers are told to transcribe exactly what they SEE and not what someone thinks it ought to be! Remember the maxim that "an enumerator's error is not an error" and you should never try to correct what is clearly an enumerator's error based on some other information you may possess. All you can do is add a note of annotation, which I believe Ancestry permits but FMP doesn't (rightly, in my view, because such annotations made public can often lead to confusion, since how can we know that the person who made the annotation is correct?). Individuals and families moved about in Victorian times far more than we imagine and the likelihood of finding people at the same address in successive censuses is not high. Often you may find someone has moved many miles away for work purposes. Occupations particularly susceptible to this were railways workers, commercial travellers, seamen and fishermen, and so on. And then there´s the fact that sometimes our ancestors told fibs, varying from little white lies to whopping great big ones! Perhaps they´d told a lie to their spouse about their age and had to maintain it, or possibly there was a more sinister reason - like someone in authority was looking for them. I've come across a number of cases where the name has changed altogether but one can still tell from the family pattern (children's names, ages, birthplaces etc) that it was the same family. Some people elevated their social situation in the censuses. There may be other reasons why ages and birth places can differ in censuses. Many people genuinely didn´t know precisely how old they were, particularly if they´d been born before 1837. Or they might give their birth place as a village in one census and the nearest town in another, sometimes different places altogether. Maybe they thought they'd been born in a particular place and, by the time of the next census, they'd found out they were actually born somewhere else. Some gave the name of the earliest place they could remember living in, which might not have been where they were born at all. How can you break down these brick walls when searching the online censuses? There´s a family historian´s motto that says "Less is more". What this means is that it is possible to enter too much information into the search fields, especially if you´ve ticked the "exact" box. If just one detail is wrong, then you may well not find your ancestor. To solve the problem try these things... 1. Uncheck the "exact match only" box. 2. Try variant surnames and allow soundex and/or phonetic matches, using every variant you can think of. 3. Use wildcards. Use only some of the surname and an asterisk to allow the search engine to fill in the rest. The drawback to this approach is that you may return too many results. In these cases you may have to gradually add information a bit at a time to eliminate some of them. 4. Omit the surname altogether. It´s surprising how often this can work! I often try entering just a forename or forenames, an approximate age and birth place and you may be fortunate enough to find your ancestor appearing in a surname that has become seriously garbled, either in the original census or in the transcription, but which you can recognise by the forenames of the spouse and children. 5. If you can´t find an individual with his/her family, consider that they might have been living away from home in service; in an institution, such as a school, hospital, workhouse, prison or asylum; gone into the army or navy and serving abroad or in a military establishment somewhere; working overseas. Don't forget to look for them in shipping lists and other resources. 6. Always look at the neighbours and up and down the street. In Victorian times when homes were seriously over-crowded, some families often "farmed out" some of the kids to other family members like uncles and aunts, cousins and even neighbours who weren't relatives. 7. Has the missing person you're looking for died/got married/gone abroad/changed their name, etc, etc. 8. Read the help and advice sections at FMP, Ancestry, etc, thoroughly before starting out on your search. These give very similar advice to that I have given above. 9. Above all, use your imagination and persevere! I expect listers will have other tips of their own to add to mine. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE ..... Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Well there's the census section of the forthcoming new edition of the Newbies Guide taken care of ;-) Colin -----Original Message----- From: yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Ellen Edwards Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 6:17 PM To: roy.stockdill@btinternet.com; yorksgen@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [YORKSGEN] Some tips Thank you, Roy, this is so true! Very helpful info for those of us starting our research for ancestors in the various online listings. EE -----Original Message----- From: yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:yorksgen-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of roy.stockdill@btinternet.com Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2012 1:22 AM As promised..... This is a very common problem, especially when an individual is found in one census but not in another. It´s important to remember that census returns can contain many errors of mistranscription and indexing, plus enumerator´s errors and the fact that information often varies, sometimes wildly, from one census to another. But remember also that transcribers are told to transcribe exactly what they SEE and not what someone thinks it ought to be! Remember the maxim that "an enumerator's error is not an error" and you should never try to correct what is clearly an enumerator's error based on some other information you may possess. All you can do is add a note of annotation, which I believe Ancestry permits but FMP doesn't (rightly, in my view, because such annotations made public can often lead to confusion, since how can we know that the person who made the annotation is correct?). Individuals and families moved about in Victorian times far more than we imagine and the likelihood of finding people at the same address in successive censuses is not high. Often you may find someone has moved many miles away for work purposes. Occupations particularly susceptible to this were railways workers, commercial travellers, seamen and fishermen, and so on. And then there´s the fact that sometimes our ancestors told fibs, varying from little white lies to whopping great big ones! Perhaps they´d told a lie to their spouse about their age and had to maintain it, or possibly there was a more sinister reason - like someone in authority was looking for them. I've come across a number of cases where the name has changed altogether but one can still tell from the family pattern (children's names, ages, birthplaces etc) that it was the same family. Some people elevated their social situation in the censuses. There may be other reasons why ages and birth places can differ in censuses. Many people genuinely didn´t know precisely how old they were, particularly if they´d been born before 1837. Or they might give their birth place as a village in one census and the nearest town in another, sometimes different places altogether. Maybe they thought they'd been born in a particular place and, by the time of the next census, they'd found out they were actually born somewhere else. Some gave the name of the earliest place they could remember living in, which might not have been where they were born at all. How can you break down these brick walls when searching the online censuses? There´s a family historian´s motto that says "Less is more". What this means is that it is possible to enter too much information into the search fields, especially if you´ve ticked the "exact" box. If just one detail is wrong, then you may well not find your ancestor. To solve the problem try these things... 1. Uncheck the "exact match only" box. 2. Try variant surnames and allow soundex and/or phonetic matches, using every variant you can think of. 3. Use wildcards. Use only some of the surname and an asterisk to allow the search engine to fill in the rest. The drawback to this approach is that you may return too many results. In these cases you may have to gradually add information a bit at a time to eliminate some of them. 4. Omit the surname altogether. It´s surprising how often this can work! I often try entering just a forename or forenames, an approximate age and birth place and you may be fortunate enough to find your ancestor appearing in a surname that has become seriously garbled, either in the original census or in the transcription, but which you can recognise by the forenames of the spouse and children. 5. If you can´t find an individual with his/her family, consider that they might have been living away from home in service; in an institution, such as a school, hospital, workhouse, prison or asylum; gone into the army or navy and serving abroad or in a military establishment somewhere; working overseas. Don't forget to look for them in shipping lists and other resources. 6. Always look at the neighbours and up and down the street. In Victorian times when homes were seriously over-crowded, some families often "farmed out" some of the kids to other family members like uncles and aunts, cousins and even neighbours who weren't relatives. 7. Has the missing person you're looking for died/got married/gone abroad/changed their name, etc, etc. 8. Read the help and advice sections at FMP, Ancestry, etc, thoroughly before starting out on your search. These give very similar advice to that I have given above. 9. Above all, use your imagination and persevere! I expect listers will have other tips of their own to add to mine. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE ..... Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ..... Ancestors in Yorkshire? http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html; www.ryedalefamilyhistory.org; www.wharfedalefhg.org.uk; www.yorkshireparishregisters.com; www.yorkshireroots.org.uk; ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to YORKSGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message