Genealogy Chat

What exactly does the decoder do? I have read a thread before but it was all too confusing? Could somebody simply explain it to me? Thanks Deb

The decoder groups together people (with the same surname )who are on the same census page, information which you can't get without it (unless you pay). For instance, if you search for Shuttleworths in Accrington you will get a list of 72 names (which isn't very helpful). If you use the decoder on these results, you get 18 groups and 5 "singles". So Benjamin and Margaret were living with their son Richard.

Big "thank you"s to Deb for asking the question, and to Geoff for answering it. I had already guessed at some linkages in the 1901, but I was only using the decoder to gather pages together, so I could look at 155 Coleman's in one file. It never occurred to me to sort by page number and gather families that way. Once again, Thank You !!

Help...where do I get the decoder? Marlene

Hi Marlene you will find it at www.censusdecoder(.)com remove brackets.

Thanks Karen. GREAT! Marlene

More questions: I have lots of Kennedys and Bensons living in Brinscall, Lancashire (they came there for the Cotton mills) and using the decoder, I have sorted them into likely families. But I am left with one group of 5 female Kennedys, ages 24,21,20,18,10 all with the same page ID. Would all the family be on one page, or could it overrun onto the next page ?. And would the next page have an ID number 1 more than this page, or is the ID number from some random-number generator ?? Thanks for any help, Bob

I think I'm right in saying that families were not "carried over" to the next page on a census. I have viewed many original documents and very often there are several unused lines at the bottom of the page, due to the fact that the next family in that St/Rd were to big so they started a new page, hope that makes sense Bob. What were that occupations of your spare ladies? I have many gardeners, ladies maids, nurses, lodgers, boarders etc.... which means thay will be the only person in their household with that surname, this is where the decoder cannot help.

Thanks Samantha, 3 of the 5 are .... cotton weavers !! the other two aren't saying ! Some kind of hostel or boarding house, maybe ?

I'm afraid you DO get families spilling over from one page to the next and the decoder cannot help you too much there. You can sometimes get clues from the way the enumerator has written things down in my experience. If they have written "Bury Lancs" for several people they are not going to suddenly change to "Bury Lancashire" or "Lancs Bury" for the rest of the household. Regarding the Kennedy females, try them individually on "Advanced search" using "daughter" as the additional info. If they all show up as daughters then they are possibly sisters. If three show up as daughters and two don't, perhaps the odd two are nieces or inlaws. Don't give up without a fight!

Thanks for the info Geoff. I shall now brave 1837 with the decoder!! Deb

Deborah you use the decoder with the 1901 site not 1837. Steve.