Genealogy Chat

Hi, i'm fairly new to this lark and am not sure i'm looking at things the right way. If i want to find the maiden name of an ancester i have been going to freebmd (thro ancestry) putting in all the grooms details and approx date of marriage ( usually working on the DOBs of children). this has been giving me a list of possibilities- choose the one i think fits click on it and then click to see others on page. if the first name of my ancester matches on page i look back on census to check age, occupation etc and have then ordered certs. have done this a few times and worked fine. now i do a search and there are no females on the page for the poor guy to marry!! Is this a fault with bmd or am i doing research wrong way?

Freebmd isn't complete yet. It just means the other people on the page haven't been indexed. So if you have a chap who marries, find him on the next available census to get his wife's name. If she has an unusual name like Hyacinth, you can maybe find her on a previous census under her maiden name, using her first name, birthplace and rough age. Or you can bite the bullet and order a cert for one of the children who appears on the census and hope she is the mother. Maiden name would be on that. Or you can look on www.familysearch.org to see if the marriage is there. nell

hiya, no you are doing nothing wrong, some marriages havent been transcribed yet, or only partial ones, which is why you'll say get 3 names on page instead of 4, the other one hasnt been 'done yet' you could try here for it, is free, http://www.ancestry*co*uk/search/rectype/vital/freebmd/bmd.aspx julie

Helen, Can you post the details of the marriage? Could be he's been transcribed with an incorrect page number. Rose

hi there.. the details are- Samuel Kershaw marrying a martha? approx 1863 in todmorden. thanks for the help. h

Helen, you can also try on Lancashire BMD at www.lancashirebmd.org.uk One advantage of this site is that it will tell you the name of the spouse instead of you having to guess which one it is from a list. The only Samuel Kershaws I could see on there who married a Martha were these: Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1858 KERSHAW Samuel BUTTERWORTH Martha Rochdale, St Chad Rochdale CE11/25/200 Lancashire Marriage indexes for the years: 1869 KERSHAW Samuel BATTERSBY Martha Heywood, St Luke Rochdale CE32/1/314 Very likely if you do a lookup on that site for the year that you found a Samuel with no matching wife entry, you will find out who that Samuel married, so definitely worth a try. Kate.

Helen, This one from FreeBMD? Marriages Jun 1862 BLAND John Todmorden 9a 260 Kershaw Samuel Todmorden 9a 260 Uttley Martha Todmorden 9a 260 One of the women is missing. On Ancestry, both women are missing. Ancestry is a few months behind FreeBMD. Rose

I had a look using the page which searches a whole lot at once (http://www.ukbmdsearch.org.uk/) and found this: KERSHAW Samuel SHEPLEY Martha 1864 Stayley, St Paul Cheshire Tameside CE35/4/92 But according to Genuki, Todmorden was in WRY Christine