Genealogy Chat

Spelling has never been one of my strong points. I could however always say that as there is no such thing as standardised spelling, my spelling was really only one variation and not a mistake.

Back in the 19th century a large proportion of the population were illiterate. There was mass migration from the countryside to to the towns and cities by people seeking work. Imagine the confusion caused by unfamiliar accents when people registered births, marriages and deaths ect. If they could not read they would be unable to know whether what was being written down was what they had intended it to be.

The result was that there were probably many instances when their names were recorded differently to how we think that they might have been spelled. E.G. Simmonds which could have been entered as Simmonds, Simmons, Symmons, Simmunds and a host of other variations.

Fortunately when searching at www.freebmd.org.uk there is a box that you can tick which broadens your search to encompass some of the possible variations. If your initial search fails to find what you are looking for, don't give up. Search again and this time tick the box on the search form entitled, "PHONETIC SEARCH SURNAMES". This might reveal the registration record that you were hoping to find.

Good luck.

Good morning Jonesey.................late start for you ??
Excellent advice and easy to do.

How true Jonesey!!

One of my branches started out in Wiltshire as Dunkerton, moved to London and stayed as Dunkerton for a while and then changed to Dunckorton, then Donckaster and finally Doncaster. I only found my 2x gt grandfather's marrriage by accident when I used the phonetic search as I had been looking for Doncaster, which is how he appeared on the 1881 and 1891 census.

If you are pretty certain as to 1st name, location and date you can also search without surname - I have picked up some gross mis-transcriptions this way, and often you can get a feel that it is "your" surname when you see it, especially if the name looks very peculiar! The same applies to ancestry too.
Jan

An excellent point Janet. Whilst helping someone recently using the "No surname" method thanks to an unusual forename combination I managed to find their ancestor on Freebmd with a completely different surname from what was thought.

Further investigations revealed that this was the correct individual who, as a child had been informally adopted by a couple and he had then assumed the surname of his "Adoptive" father which he used throughout his adult life.

Well, thanks Jonesey! I have noticed you are good at all this so take that as praise indeed! I have learned loads while on here, and have developed my (non-existent) lateral thinking skills considerably.
By the way, have just posted a rather rambling thread about gleaning info from certificates - might benefit from your input there.
Jan

If one searches Ancestry's census for Hrenn and Hnight, one might think the country's crawling with Ukrainians

nudge