Genealogy Chat

Thank you all for your comments. I actually feel quite reassured to know that I'm not the only one 'suffering' with this problem!!!!! Do you all have dents in the wall from the head-banging too????!!!!! Hopefully when the birth certificate eventually arrives it will put me out of my misery and stop me pestering all the great people who read the boards!!!! Looking for her father's death and her mother's remarriage is a suggestion I mustn't forget to follow up! So I may well be pestering with another name in the near future. Here's hoping so!!! Sue H

So I'm not alone - that good to know. My great granmother was born 9 April 1900, but shes not on the 1901 census with the rest of the family. That got me wondering if she was with grandparents - no. So she either was left out by her father possably because he forgot to register her birth or because she was younger than she thought she was. Rachel

I could not find my Grandfather, James Tocqueville, on the 1901. He was 14 years old so likely to be living with his mother. Luckily his mother had a distinct first name, Selina. I looked for all Selinas in the appropriate area and came up with Selina Mitchell 44 Head , widow, living in Shoreditch, born Southampton living with James Mitchell, 14 son, born Hoxton. It appears that Selina had remarried and been widowed again. James had either adopted her husbands name or she didn't fill out the form herself. Once you have Amanda's mothers parents details you will need to look for the death of her father and her mother remarrying. I hope for your sake that they have distinctive names. There are only 97 Amanda's on the 1871 for London so it wasn't that common a name. Best wishes Janet

I have only four missing ancesters out of all of those I would expect to find on censuses, but that is because I did the research pre Ancestry days, looking at entire villages, registation districts, or towns where necessary. That enabled me to spot witnesses to marriages, married sisters etc. The mangling of names, particularly when they move out of area, can take them very far from the originals. I have found two females where both Christian and surname are completely wrong and not even the initials are the same, which would confound anyone using an index. Indexes compound the problem by creating a few extra errors, though I am indebted to them for suggesting some extra variants to search under that would not have occurred to me. The vast majority of people seem to have told the truth as they perceived it but the enumerators clearly had problems in the larger cities in actually identifying every household and collecting all the schedules back. One enumerator in London kept on writing 'lodger took schedule with him' so yes, there will be some missing. The scale of the problem is not going to be half as bad as it will be for researchers in a century time. Didn't they say that half a million young men were missing? Combine that with computerised records and the situation will be a nightmare. B

I feel it is very important for those of us living now to leave breadcrumbs of information for them to trace us in future generations. It makes you wonder why people didnt want to be found. Nicky

I've found missing entries by looking at every image in the same district or area that they were last found or married/ born, etc. It's long and tedious but has proved successful in most cases, you then discover on the whole, how badly they have transcribed the name/place of birth etc. Have you checked if she was staying with any relatives? Did she have a pet name? Don't give up, you're bound to find her eventually.

My grandfather only appears on two census's as far as I have been able to trace 1851 as Robert Juisti and 1881 as Robert Evans. He assumed his stepfathers name, and because of that, I think, he decided that both he and his family had to opt out of official records. Ihave his second marriage certificate but apart from that he did not exist. Clive

My gggrandmother is missing between the 1891 Derbyshire census and her death in Leicester in 1919. Every possible variation has been tried to locate her in 1901 but zilch so far!

Hi Brenda, Nichola and Patricia, This one is definitely being illusive! It's just so frustrating when you've been on a roll and then hit a brick wall. Amanda was born in St Pancras and died in Southwark, so she didn't move very far during her short life. I'll keep trying with all the variations. Thanks Sue

I'm sure you have looked at possible variant spellings already. I found this by Googling: ... What does the Whitehair name mean? Last Name: Whitehair. English: variant, altered by folk etymology, of Whittier My immediate reaction to the name was Wheatear. As the way someone appears on a census is how the surname is heard, the spelling may have migrated a long way from Whitehair.

I know a feel people that wont put their details on current census returns. Some people just dont want to be traced by their descendants do they!! Nicky

Hi Nicki, On all the BMD records she is Amanda and on the 1871 census she was Amanda. The M. A. stand for Mary Ann as per her marriage record. I've tried them all, to no avail! Sue H

Is it possibly that she is known by another name. When you get the birthday certificate you should be able to search for parents. Nicky

For those of you that use the Records Board you are probably sick of seeing messages about this missing family member-Amanda M A Whitehair. SORRY IF I'VE BEEN A PAIN IN THE PROVERBIAL! I still haven't found her on any census except 1871 although I have her birth (1845), marriage(1866) and death records(1871). I'm still waiting for her birth cert. to arrive, so I don't know her parents names. How would it be possible for her not to appear on either the 1851/61 censuses? Did they avoid adding children for any particular reason? She wasn't a lunatic (as far as I can tell) 'cos she married my GGGrandfather and had 2 kids!! Any of you helpful people got any bright suggestions for her being hidden away from the public records??!!! Best wishes Sue H