Genealogy Chat

Hi, Can anyone tell me whether the census, particularly the 1901 on Ancestry are complete? I subscribe to it and have spent a couple of hours trying to find someone I know should be on there and have kept the search as broad as possible, but came up with nothing. Out of interest I went onto 1901censusonline and there he was first hit. Has anyone else had similar problems in the past? Thanks Nicky

1901 census on Ancestry can show different results to the same census on National Archives - two different lots of people did the transcribing I believe If you have got the answer from NA then should be able to find it on Ancestry. Maureen

That's what I would have thought, but no, I can't find the father and his three children, but could on NA. I used same spellings, but kept search fields as open as possible to keep it quite broad, but still nothing.

The fact you kept the names the same and had no results via Ancestry suggests that the name has been mistranscribed on the Ancestry index. Try putting the christian name and year/place in without a surname, see what you get that way.

Nicky who are you looking for? Georgina.

Don't forget; the original census is only as good as the enumerators (the bods who go around collecting the information). I was a census enumerator for the 1991 census and all I can say is 'never again!'. Delivering the forms to households was OK but trying to get them all back again was a complete nightmare where I did it. Our supervisor told us that if all the enumerators just missed out 2 housholds from their collection, it would be equivalent to missing out the population of Sheffield! Many of my relatives are 'missing' from the various 1841-1901 census records on Ancestry. I can only imagine that the enumerators did an even worse job then than we did in 1981. (There was only one house eventually where I couldn't get the form back and just left it to my supervisor to sort out. Several years later, the 'man of the house' was convicted of the murder of his wife - even though the body was never found. Maybe that's why I never got a straight answer as to how many people were in the house on Census night!!!???)

Ok, will try putting in first name and year only and see what happens. I am getting a little frustrated with paying out for annual subscription and not always getting the results. Georgina, I have now found on NA, but was looking for Nathaniel Simmonds born 1855 in Middx along with his three surviving children (wife had died in 1900) and these were Alfred, Phoebe and Imad, all born in Chelsea, London, but nothing on Ancestry.

Thanks Simon, but if NA can do it, why can't Ancestry?

Thanks for the tip about putting only first name and birth year, as have now got result!!! Simmonds has been transcribed as Limmond and now been able to look at the whole family in the household and seen that Maud was incorrectly transcribed as Imad!!! Many thanks again, will use this tip in future, most definitely - had never thought about doing that before.

1901 any good ? Name: Alfred Limmond Age: 2 Estimated birth year: abt 1899 Relation: Son Father's name: Nathaniel Gender: Male Where born: Chelsea, London, England Civil parish: Chelsea Ecclesiastical parish: St Luke Chelsea County/Island: London Country: England Street address: Occupation: Condition as to marriage: Education: Employment status: View image Registration district: Chelsea Sub-registration district: Chelsea, North ED, institution, or vessel: 11 Neighbors: View others on page Household schedule number: 201 Household Members: Name Age Alfred Limmond 2 John Herbert Limmond 9 Maud Limmond 10 Nathaniel Limmond 46 Phoebe Limmond 13

Also remember how similar L and S can be in old fashioned writing. Found it quite easily Maureen

The thing is though that no matter which sites you use there is no site that can be 100% accurate for every record. I have some correct rellies on Ancestry but not on the PRO site for example and others who are on PRO but not correctly indexed on Ancestry.

Thanks everyone for all your help, you certainly learn something every day in this game don't you?

I have found that the Ancestry 1901 census is inaccurate or incomplete for many of my research interests. The original 1901 version is far better. You can search this for free at least to the point where you can identify the particular person and their area. Sometimes this gives you enough info to go back to Ancestry and search through the area page by page till you find what you are looking for.

Hi there, so can anybody give us a complete list of all the sites which carry the censuses which we should be trying before we give up on a particular ancestor, and how much it costs to access them?