Online sources of English and Welsh BMD amp; Cens

jc1641 · Post by **jc1641** » 10 Apr 2007 12:02

Hi,

Im looking for a good, reliable website for English and Welsh BMD and Census records. So far Ive tried both Ancestry.co.uk and Genes Reunited but didnt find either of them terribly satisfactory.

Can anyone recommend a good site?

Thanks,

John.

ID:2294

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 10 Apr 2007 12:07

I get on fine with ancestry, what problem were you having?

jc1641 · Post by **jc1641** » 10 Apr 2007 12:46

Well, one example - looking for John Evans in Newport, Monmouthshire in the 1891 Census returned 'No Results', which clearly isn't right. Then I discoverd that the 1891 Census has been indexed using 'Monmouth' instead of 'Monmouthshire' as used in the 1861 and 1901 Censuses.

Or - searching the 1881 Census for someone born in the USA, all the results returned were for people born in the various UK countries; no US-born results at all.

Or - 'Newport, Newport' being the index entry for both 'Newport, Monmouthshire' and 'Newport, Salop'.

These are just three examples from two hours of searching. Very frustrating!

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 10 Apr 2007 13:09

Strange - I just went into the 1891 Census for Wales and got 9 hits for John Evans in Newport.

I just searched the 1881 for Wales and it returned 7 people born in the USA. You need to watch as it will sometimes expand the search if it does not find any records.

Have you been going to a single census and searching or using the global one. I find that way stops Ancestry trying to be helpful.

You could try FindMyPast, I use them occasionally when I can't find something on Ancestry.

jc1641 · Post by **jc1641** » 10 Apr 2007 13:41

Hi Jane,

I used the census-specific search rather than the global one.

I did eventually get John Evans in the 1891 Census as you did - my concern is the incosistency between the usage of Monmouth as the county in 1891 and Monmouthshire in 1861 and 1901.

I will run the search of the 1881 census again, because I certainly didn't get any US-born results.

Thanks for the tip about FindMyPast - I'll give them a go,

John.

smol · Post by **smol** » 10 Apr 2007 17:33

Try using Monmouth* which will pick up Monmouth and Monmouthshire.
I do this regularly
York* finds Yorks and Yorkshire.
Similarly Fred* gets Fred, Freddie, Frederic, Frederick etc.
Remember the index reflects what was written (or what the transciber thought was written).
smol

philjo · Post by **philjo** » 12 Apr 2007 13:13

Besides transcription errors, I have got several instances where the birth placename was spelt wrongly by he enumerator - presumably he didn't understand their Shropshire/yorkshire accents.
Also, some of the entries have the wrong birth county written down by the enumerator, so If I don't find what I want to start with, I do a search based on just the name & birth date.

I had a James Evans which I couldn't find on the 1861 for ages, I eventually got it when this census became available on findmypast.
It turned out that Ancestry had transcribed it as Evanco.

Jeremy

LittleMissP · Post by **LittleMissP** » 21 Sep 2007 23:59

Sorry if I'm hijacking this post, but I am also having problems locating records on ancestry. After spending hours searching for relatives where some of my knowledge is a little hazy I tested the search engine out... Without question I know my own name, DOB and where I was born, but there is just no BMD record. I exist! Now I accept that my name may have been incorrectly transcribed in some way but I cannot find any record that is even near. My name is Paula Pheby, born in 1979 in Orsett, Essex. I cannot even find ANY Pheby's born in Essex (there are many others), even with the 'exact' box unchecked, on the global search. Please help- thank you!

RSellens · Post by **RSellens** » 22 Sep 2007 06:26

Paula,
You won't find your self on the BMD index as they have not been transcribed upto to 1979 on the FreeBMD part. If you look at the decsriptions on the Ancestry site you will see that they have the Partial FreeBMD index from 1837 up to 1983 (it's probably transcribed up to about 1915 ish), after 1983 they have the full indexs until about 2005.
They do have the full set of BMD index's which you can view if you go to the 'Complete BMD Index ranges & Images 1837-1983' collection. It won't return you as a direct result, but will return the image pages on which you should appear (which i suspect from the info you gave is in the 2nd Quarter, and actual listed as Thurrock district).

Richard

jcm · Post by **jcm** » 22 Sep 2007 15:00

Paula
There is a Paula Helen Pheby, mother's name Archer, born Q2 1979 Thurrock District vol 9 page 6456. Hope this helps.
John

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 23 Sep 2007 08:27

If anyone finds incorrect transcriptions on Ancestry please make sure you report them using the transcription error links. Ancestry will never check the original transcriptions again so it is only through feedback from family historians that the entries will get corrected. Even after you submit a correction Ancestry keep their original error, but at least your correction is listed as well and is searchable by others.

Between one in ten and one in twenty of all the census entries I find have at least one error. I have found Angell listed as Augell, Wagstaff as Nagstaff and Wood as Word to name a few. The Wagstaff entry was particularly annoying as it was William Wagstaff and despite the W of Wagstaff being identical to the W of William, the transcriber only decided they couldn't read the Wagstaff W. If the error is in the enumerator's original entry then you can enter their real name as an alternate name instead which will become searchable. Errors in place names can't be recorded although you can add a comment to the entry for others to read. Also if the head of the family has a transcription error in their surname, make sure you enter the correction for all family members as Ancestry don't copy it down to the others.

I have had two people contact me over transcriptions where I have submitted corrections. One was a relative of mine, the other was not as far as I know, but my 4 great grandmother was living in the same house as their ancestor. Their ancestor had the wonderful name of Harper Twelvetrees, but was transcribed as Harper Swelvetrea in the 1841. You would think having an unusual surname like Twelvetrees would help searching, but Harper and his family get wrongly transcribed in almost every census.

With regards to searching I often resort to searching for all of a certain surname at a certain place in a range of years or all of a certain first name. This can give huge numbers of results, but if you narrow with various other filters such as county or town of birth you can usually narrow it down. Be careful with filters, using too many at the same time can make it miss the result you are looking for depending on what is incorrectly recorded or transcribed. I usually use a range of years with either Town or County, but not both at the same time; I have found a whole Nottinghamshire enumeration district moved into Derbyshire on Ancestry before now.

If you find someone on one census but can't find them on the previous one, look for their siblings instead using first name and year range as they may have a more unusual first name which helps to narrow the results. I have even found some ancestors by searching for their next door neighbours from one census to another and you find your ancestor still living next door but wrongly transcribed.

AnneEast · Post by **AnneEast** » 24 Sep 2007 16:01

Always remember that 'less is more' when searching the census indexes! Also I always go straight to the actual image of the page rather than the transcription - I prefer to trust my own interpretation.

I began doing census searches with actual images on fiche and CD. I don't find it at all surprising that the transcriptions are sometimes wide of the mark. The writing is often aweful and sometimes the page is so faint its nearly impossible to read. Having said that there are some very wierd interpretations of what is written.

Choosing the individual census allows us to enter very little. You can just put a fist name and date of birth if you like. Sometimes I search the whole set of people born in one place in one year - not putting a person's name in at all. I have successfully found many mistranscriptions this way.

Without the Ancestry transcriptions (with all their shortcomings) I would NEVER have found my Great Grandmother in 1861. She was working 200 miles away from home just 2 months before her marriage.

Anne

LittleMissP · Post by **LittleMissP** » 24 Sep 2007 23:25

Thanks for all the advice and tips. I have found lots more of my more recent relatives now! I just didn't understand that the main search page on ancestry.co.uk is of a partial index, hence the confusion. I wish they'd put something on there though along the lines of 'didn't find what you want? try the COMPLETE index'!

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