Genealogy Chat

would there be any spacific reason as to why a family would not be on the census, I have searched in vain for the family info I want on the 1891 census, there are 7/8 of them and I can't find anyone,

Post some details

There are many reasons why our ancestors do not appear in the census records where we expect them to be.

Census enumerators may have misheard what they were being told. They may have spelled names differently (Remember that there is no such thing as standardised spelling of names) or because they were human just like us they may have simply made a mistake.

The next step in the recording process is transcribing the record itself. Trying to decipher someone else’s handwriting is not always easy and often results in the record being incorrectly transcribed. Once again the people doing the transcribing are human so mistakes are made. Mistranscriptions can be very frustrating.

Here is a tip which may help you to find who you are searching for.

Type the persons forename into the census search form but leave the surname box completely empty. You can do this in reverse if you wish, entering a surname but leaving the forename box empty. Remember that people often used a different 1st name from the one they were born/baptised with. E.G. Dick = Richard, Harry = Henry, Nellie = Eleanor, Betsy = Elizabeth ect. Be aware also of common enumerators abbreviations such as Thos = Thomas, Hy = Henry, Wm = William ect

Type the persons birth year +/- 2 or +/- 5 years. Some people were not sure how old they were or they may have deliberately lied about their age to make themselves appear younger or older than their spouse. Children’s ages in census returns are generally more likely to be accurate than those of adults.

Type in their birth county/birthplace. Sometimes it pays to leave the birthplace blank because that too may have been misheard, misspelled or mistranscribed. Some people genuinely did not know their exact place of birth or may even have lied for various reasons.

If necessary use wildcards such as "*" or "?" in the surname to try to reveal a name where wrongly transcribed letters may have changed a name. E.G. Pegden, Pigden, Pigdon, Pagden. Entering P?gd* will reveal all those options plus many others if using Ancestry.

Press "Search". This will bring up a list of all the people with that name of approximate age born in that county/place. Scroll through the list (It may be a long list) and hopefully you will find your missing ancestor shown as Borne instead of Bourne or Wilks instead of Wilkes or similar. It doesn't always work but it might.

Look for patterns in words rather than names just beginning with the 1st letter of the correct name. E.G. Baldrick has 8 letters and ends 'ick' as does Coldrick. Anyone looking for someone called Tucker may well be shocked to discover how some of their ancestors were mistranscribed.

Good luck with your search.

They usually are, even if they are what we often call 'hiding'. post up what you do know, names birthplaces and where they were/might have been/could be.

Someone will hunt them out!

Have you tried looking for them just using first names? Sometimes using the first name of a child, year of birth, place of birth and parents' first names.

Try what Jonesey says, I had the same difficulty as you, and some kind person on here found the family I was looking for, the surname was Thorne, but was found under Vaughn, I would never have found them myself.
Best Wishes with your search,

ShelleyRose x

Sometimes they are just left off the index.

I searched for ages for a Hannah in 1901.
When I searched for her probable spouse, she was there with him all the time on the image, but even 'Working backwards' with the then known information, she still didn't show up.

If it's a small village or area where you expect to find them, you may have to get the images up on screen and then look from house to house.

Gwyn

Some areas are missing for some census - Ancestry used to have a note of "known" problems, but it doesn't seem to be there now!

The other day, I searched an entire ED's images looking for an address which should have been there but wasn't - several house numbers seem to be missing.

I also have a complete family missing from one census, as well as various individuals and have had problems finding others because of mistranscriptions. I find less is usually more for find the awkward ones - first name, YOB and county of birth, plus a parent's first name if known.