* records with no names in the index

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jmurphy
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records with no names in the index

Post by jmurphy »

A recent blog post at findmypast has prompted me to revisit searching by census address. https://blog.findmypast.com/1911-census ... 67585.html

The post starts off as follows:
Our handy address search tool, which previously only featured on the 1901 and 1911 UK censuses, the 1939 Register and Australia Electoral Rolls, is now available across all British censuses from 1841 to 1911. This allows you to find out who was living at a particular address at the time each census was taken. Use this quick guide to get the most out of census address searches.
To review my previous work, I went to the 1939 Register and searched for the Kingsbridge R. D. (Rural District) which is one of my study places. This is where Slapton (near Kingsbridge) is, most annoyingly mis-indexed in the 1911 Census as Hapton.

As far as I know, street addresses in Slapton aren't numbered, or not very often. There are several dwellings on Church Lane, and named houses and farms.

I got 10,020 results -- not what I was expecting for a place that has, at most, had less than 800 residents. There seem to be many pages of results with no names attached.

Here's the first entry with no name:
Household (1 Person) Church Lane , Kingsbridge R.D., Devon, England

This property was vacant in 1939

With this record, you are able to see the original image showing neighbouring properties' occupants, plus Maps, Newspapers, Statistics & Photos, but note you don't see this property's Household Transcript, as there were no occupants living here in 1939.
Why not view the original image and see this property's neighbours?

Ref: RG101/6871I/004/17 Letter Code:
I am tempted now to start my One-Place Study just to see what is going on -- to examine each page of the 1939 Register for the district, make a list of the names and note where the closed entries are, and see for myself where the alleged empty residences are. And after that, to start comparing each household in the census and other data sets, working backwards through time until 1841, or however far back I can get electoral rolls.

This is not the first time I've seen records with no name in the index. For examples from Ancestry (mostly in the US if I recall correctly) see Crista Cowan's Barefoot Genealogist video on YouTube, Some Genealogy Records Have No Names: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFi1fhmalB0

I'd be interested to know if other members of FHUG have stumbled onto this problem in their own research. If you find something, please share it here.
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