Genealogy Chat

Hi Syliva

I know the census record that's gone missing for my gt grandfather wasn't a good image like some of them on GR but still it must be better to have it there than not at all.

Especially for anyone who subscribes to Gold or platinum membership you would feel a bit cheated.

Regards
Gai

GR is the worst possible site for searching, especially bmds!!

It is far better to use www.freebmd.org.uk for all records between 1 July 1837 and (currently) about 1950

and it's a FREE site!



PLUS


those of you having problems wth the 1851, especially if you are looking in Lancashire

are you aware that there were sections of the 1851 Census that were so damaged that they could not be filmed and transcribed?


This applies particularlyl to the Manchester area ..... but fortunately the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society have undertaken the task of deciphering them

go to

www.1851-unfilmed.org.uk/intro.htm



you can look for free, and see the names and addresses

but I think you have to subscribe to FMP to see any more detail




EVERY census seems to have some pages missing, for whatever reason ...... mis-transcription, transcriber missing out sections, pages missing from the roignal record etc etc

thus information on ancestors becomes unattainable.



sylvia

I have only ever used GR (or occasionally FMP for address searches) for census records. The only problem I've had was with one particular page where the image itself was extremely faint. No other problems.

GR has replaced census records and some have vanished all together. I contacted GR months ago about the problem but nothing has been done.

I even gave them the information on exactly which of my pages are missing. The response I received was a number of records were replaced by better copies as they used a new supplier of records. But all records should have been replaced and not totally deleted.

On the up side I now have some family members that were missing from the 1851 census.

Lucky I made copies of all my records prior to the changes as I would be pulling my hair out trying to find my gt grandfather as he now doesn't appear in the records for GR or FMP.

Regards,
Gai

I had a whole bunch of "missing" census entries that stopped progress. I listened to the advice given in the National Archives podcast "solving census problems" and found that all of the entries were on GR, just not in the form expected. One key issue was the spelling, by the census taker, who would often write a name how it sounded, if it had been given verbally. This allowed me to find a "Herby" ancestor who was in an early census as "Irby" The podcast concerned is at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/solving-census-problems.mp3

Although I haven't used Genes for this purpose, I gather from comments on here that it isn't very good. The general opinion among members is to keep basic Genes membership (to request help & advice) and have a sub. to either Ancestry or FMP.
You can always ask for people to do lookups for you if you wish - maybe if entry is found on one of these two sites (maybe with an error in the name for example) it might enable you to then locate what you need on Genes.
Jan

The issue is not whether or not the census copies are present, is is to do with the quality of the indexing.

When you search on a website you are looking at the computerised index - think of it like an index in a book. If the index is missing or incorrect, then you don't find the page, even though it is there.

Evey site has its own index, and all are different to each other as it is impossible for them all to be 100% accurate, due to the sheer number of names. Just a 1% error over a million entries mean ten thousand are affected.

Most sites have an option to report errors and omissions and will welcome your input. Ancestry, for example has an on-line facility to do this, but I can't speak for GR as I don't use them for searching records.

...I'm having problems too .... GR censuses do not seem to have my g/grandad (& family) from 1871/81/91/& 1901 ...they do have him in 1911!! Fortunately I know exactly where they were living etc -as I have seen them before ...somewhere ....maybe on FMP (?) though I'm not a member.

I have recently asked GR if they've 'renewed' or 'replaced' their copies ....and somehow latest copies have names missing! Hoping to hear back from them!

Valerie

What sort of problem?

can anybody tell me why i have a problem with census records on genesreunited and not on ancestry.many thanks.jk