Genealogy Chat

Dave I have now looked at the image and I am confident it says Nicholas and not James - I doubt if I would have read it as Nicholas though, unless you had blown it up for me, so thanks a lot for that. Disappointed though, that my infallible source made a mistake! I now have to sort through a million bits of paper and tear up the ones with James and Margaret on them. Happy hunting and thanks again. Marjorie

Thanks for the image Dave, I'm off to look at it now! Thanks also to everyone else who took an interest. Marjorie

The son is spelt "Nichlos" and the father looks the same, but with the initial "N" formed differently. I have people who alternate between round and spiky initial "A", so that doesn't present a problem, though it is confusing to any transcriber. The image that Dave has put up is a darn sight clearer than some of the photocopies we had access to. B

Marjorie I've put the image at http://homepage(.)ntlworld(.)com/kinship/james.html you can see the flourish of the Margaret above descends into James/Nicholas confusing everything. I don't think its Nicholas. dave

Sorry to confuse you - it definitely IS Nicholas - but the handwriting makes it look a shorter name than that, but definitely NOT James.

Geoff Thanks for that! That is exactly the problem, young James ought to be called Nicholas with a wife Mary or Margaret. Old James is the father of Nicholas, he didnt have a son called James. I have checked the baptisms of "young James" children, they are all the children of Nicholas and Mary. Hm. Do I just assume the enumerator went mad and wrote James instead of Nicholas? Actually, this family is driving me barmy, I have all the census info on them since 1841, they seem to shuffle and regroup every time and just as I thought I had finally pinned them down this happens! They seemed to borrow each other's children a lot for census night. (Incidentally, old James has a daughter Ann, who is described as a lunatic in 1881, I'm not surprised.) Oh well, onwards and upwards. Thanks again Marjorie.

There are 5 schedules (ie census forms) for Langshawhead - the heads of households are as follows: #87 James Holden 76 (plus 4 others) #88 Holden Howarth 23 (plus 2 others) #89 Nicolas Holden 35 (plus 7 others) #90 James Bury 32 (plus 1 other) #91 Thomas Hindle? 68 (alone) This appears to be the same as on LDS (except for Nicolas/James in #89 and Howarth/Haworth on #88) - perhaps I wouldn't have guessed it was Nicolas if you hadn't said. #87 Mary Alice born Langshawhead. Hope this helps.

Thankyou Brenda and Geoff. The reference I have (from the extraction done in 1986) is RG11.4208 Folio 107 P17. For Langshawhead, which is Over Darwen or Upper Darwen Lancs. I cannot work out whether there are two dwellings, or two households in the same dwelling. James Holden age 76 a farmer and Nicholas Holden age 35 with his wife.....who?And their children? I would be very grateful if someone could look at this for me when they have a mo, it is beginning to look as if I have been following the wrong line.... Marjorie

The info that you have would probably have been transcribed from the census page (which is itself a transcription) rather than being from LDS. Transcribers are normally instructed to write what "they think it looks like" rather than "what they think it should be". Your contact was probably knowledgeable enough to take the second option. The 1881 images are available on Ancestry; if you give the details of the person in question then someone can check the image.

Hi Marjorie Family History Societies across the country and many other interested individuals worked on transcribing the 1881 census during the 1980s. We worked from photocopies of the originals and transcribed the records by hand. there were supposed to be two copies to provide a check and then quality control provided by the Mormons entering the information onto their data base. The information originally appeared on fiche, county by county and it was ages before they had a computer powerful enough to do the final sort and produce an intergrated index for the entire country. Once the information was in fiche form, there should be no reason for it differing from what you can see today, but there is always a possibility that the original transcriber's interpretation was mistranscribed when entered by the Mormons. It also has to be said that some counties were much better done than others. I think the final version did not appear until about 1990, but I cannot now remember precise dates. B

If this seems like a daft question, I have some information taken from the 1881 census. That information was extracted about 1986. The person who extracted the information is now dead, and unknown to me anyway. I have extracted the same information from the online 1881 LDS. But my information is different to the information extracted in 1986! What I'm trying to get at, is it more likely that the 1986 extraction was done from the ACTUAL census returns and is therefore more likely to be accurate, or was the census already "computerised" by the LDS? (I must add, all the info given by my 1986 source has been absolutely accurate and this is the first query I have in over 190 pages of information) Thanks Marjorie