Genealogy Chat

Really hope someone can help i'm really stuck. Am trying to find the birth certificate of Mabel Helena Catchlove White I have her marriage certificate to Alfred Sullivan (where her age is given as 22) in 1906 in Portsea, Southampton and her son's birth certificate in 1911 in Newport, Llantarnam, Monmouth where her name is given as Mabel Helena Sullivan. Her father was Charles White occupation given as Labourer on her marriage cert (possibly the C.A White who is a witness) But can not find her on the 1901 census or her birth have looked 2 years either side of 1884. I thought having an unusual name it would be easy to find her, how wrong I was! Does anyone have any suggestions of where else I can look?

Have you picked up that there are some amazing mistranscriptions on the 1901 census? (The mild ones are such as JasAn for JasOn; LeAnard for LeOnard; CoOks fo CoCks). She may not have given her full name to the census. If you use wildcards (a * for any number of characters a ? for a single character) you can sometimes get a result. For example... I put in White, He*, female, aged 18 +/- 2years, born ports* and got: Helen White 17 Hants Portsmouth Hampshire Portsmouth General Servant Domestic Then I tried Charles, male, aged 50, +/- 30years with otherwise the same data and got 19 results, but only a couple use the same description of the places: Charles White 38 Hants Portsmouth Hampshire Portsmouth Coster Monger Charles White 59 Hants Portsmouth Hampshire Portsmouth Retired Chief Carpenter R N I know you're expecting "Mabel" to be the first name, but it gives the idea. You might decide not to put "ports*" into the born slot, but the place instead. That gives another lot of results. Somewhere amongst the Tips threads there's one which tells you about a 1901census decoder programme which (if you use a pc rather than a Mac) will give you a clue about which names would be on the same page or in the same household or something - without having to pay. (I don't know full detail because I use a Mac so haven't followed it up). That will help you to rule out not-relevant name-combinations. good hunting Christine

And, I forgot to say - even in my updating of the above message - Portsea is Portsmouth rather than Southampton. I suspect that they're using Southampton as the county - as you sometimes see York or Lancaster or whatever. Christine

Kiera Is it possible that she was registered under the surname CATCHLOVE? Have you also checked under "female" for first name - some children were registered before their parents had decided on a name for them! nell

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll have another look