Genealogy Chat

10 years between each census is a long time for most people, & as they probably didn't fill it in themselves because of illiteracy, places of birth as Janet says can be written in several ways.
I can't remember what I write from one census to another, god knows what anyone from the future will think, there will be message boards just like this one, "just think she didn't know where she was born & she could read & write!.

I have found that problem, Janet, just recently with one of my ancestors. In 1851, he gives his birthplace as "St. Mary's, Kent". In 1861 he says he was born in Marylebone, London, then in 1871 he says he was born in Bayswater.

It has taken me about a year of census-trawling (his name was translated badly) to find him on the 1851, 1861 and 1871.

And my other side is a nightmare because they were gamekeepers and moved about a lot. My 3xgreat uncle was born at Baron Hill, Anglesey (1861) but by 1871 it was down as Beaumaris. In 1881 he said it was Thorney, Notts and in 1891 it was York. By 1901 it was Nottingham. And the only way I know he's the right person is because he came from a family of gamekeepers and his occupation matched.

Sometimes I think if these people came back to life I would give them a good talking-to about it.

Its a difficult one. If the place of birth is to become part of Hotmatches GR would have to ensure everyone entered the data in a standardised format.
This would be fine providing we all entered the same info but take the case of
James Macaree b.1841 Bethnal Green, London

he wouldn't match with

James Macaree b.1841 St Matthews, Bethnal Green

nor

James Macaree b.1841 East London

and if you missed out the comma on the 1st two examples there'd be no match either.

As for my James Branton born in any of the following Otley, Monewden Hoo or Framlingham depending on your source......................

There are some people who have an incorrect p.o.b. for their ancestor. How do you know some of the hot matches GR send are not related to you because of the different p.o.b.? My 2nd cousin had our gt grandmother b in London when she was actually b in Gloustershire. I was able to send him a copy of her b cert, after which he corrected it.
As for places/ages on censuses, if it was a wife, the head of the house often did not know the correct details and just said what he thought. Or the person might have been brought up in a place after the family moved there when they were too little to remember, so they have put the wrong p.o.b themselves. If details dont match entirely I send a pm to the member saying 'my Joe Bloggs was m to ....... and had children called .....' That helps to match up or not.

Have to admit, I do get annoyed by that too (especially because I have James Smiths and Ann Smiths etc, as many people do).

What I try to do if I don't know where/when they were born is fill it in so it says eg. John Smith, c. 1890, married Mary Jones in Aughton, Lancashire, so people can see if it is likely to be him or not.

Sometimes I will put "baptised in Doncaster" down for the birthplace. The blanks can just be frustrating both ways because, often, I don't contact people now who leave birthplaces blank.

Can sympathise - my problem with GR Hot matches is that they give you a Hot Match for anyone that puts 'unknown' in any of their 'people' places. This makes it appear as if my relatives are all related to everyone else's relatives whose names they don't know.
Hope this makes sense - it does to me, but is difficult to explain.
Eileen

I have an extensive tree on Family Historian, with places of baptism for those people who were born before civil registration, and for whom I have no subsequent census or other evidence of place of birth/residence. Trouble is when this is uploaded onto GR the baptism info only shows once you look at an individual. Another problem is that Family Historian supports birthdates in the form of "between 1801 and 1805" or "before 2 Dec 1804" but this becomes garbled on GR so some of my ancestors appear to have no year of birth either.
In an ideal world I would go through and edit them all. In reality I have no time to do this except for those members of my tree I particularly want contacts for. I don't expect people to contact me about the ones who show with no year or place of birth (though sometimes where they have an unusual name I have had contacts who proved to be related) but they have to stay there or the tree would not be a tree but a series of fallen leaves!

Sometimes you just don't know & putting England or Australia or Czechoslavakia doesn't really help. Well, Czechoslavakia might, but you know what I mean.

Unless it is one of my really unusual surnames I ignore ones with no place of birth.

Ozi.

I have a whole family of 'wrong wrongs'

GR wont allow me to delete my mistakes easily.

My 'Wrong Wrongs' come from the UK but I still get hot matches! even from Australia and the USA!!!!

Get with it GR!

Ggggrrrr

Yes, Yes, I have had hundreds over the last year who have been hotmatches in totally the wrong place. I now ignore any who don't give a place of birth and I do.

Margaret

Hi Eloise
l can appreciate that but it would be more beneficial to yourself when looking for relatives lf you have their birth places
When l do a name search l match up with place of birth if l have it
Thanks everyone for your comments they've helped me to see the broader picture
Regards
Pam

A lot of people have a gedcom file offline, and update this one instead of their Genes Reunited tree. They will upload their updated trees every now and then, therefore updating the information for the Hot Matches.

I too have an offline tree, and have tried to put it online, but it's saved as an FTW file instead of a GEDCOM, so it won't upload. It creates an endless amount of problems, but there's no way I'm updating both trees because it's so time-consuming!

l have contacted a few people on the off chance l may be able to help or vice versa if it turned out they were related
My relatives originated in so many different parts of the country ending up in Liverpool lt seemed worth a try.
Oh well maybe one day g.r. will get hot matches sorted so they really are a hot match and not a cool one
Pam

I was going to say that maybe they didn't know, but if they say that then it can't be. I must admit that I wouldn't contact anyone who didn't have a place of birth listed too.

Does anyone else get fed up with contacting people on hot matches with an unknown place name next to their ancestor
Then when they reply they say sorry my ancestor was born so and so
l won't contact anyone who doesn't state place of birth anymore
Pam