General Chat

Is it me ? I haven't been on here for a few years and now I cannot find my way about GR. I want to view the different censuses but cannot, for the life of me find out how to do it.. I am finding GR very complicated.
Grace

I don't use GR records but the census are listed under 'Search' at top of page.

I don't use GR for research either - always use the free Mormon site - www.familysearch.org

Family search does not give access to UK census images unless you are a FH member or visit one of their centres. More often than not the info you need is not on the transcript.

GR has an excellent index to the census and BMD records which is fast and accurate and available to everybody for free :-)

I spent nearly 6 hours on GR last night and found the whole experience a struggle.. I was trying to follow a family line and eventually got the census records for 1861, 1891, 1901 and 1911 but more often than not was given 'There are no results for' even though I had found them in the census either side of the decade I was searching. Thats why it took 6 hours to get 13 pieces of printed 'Household Info' and a good few credits spent.. Obviously I need a lot more practice. :-D

Grace, if you are spending credits don't forget you can always ask on the Find Ancestors board for look ups, it will save you a bit of money especially if you are 'wasting' credits if you get the wrong family. Helpers with subs here or elsewhere are always happy to help.

Also sometimes it is is better to put in less info in a search as if there is a mistranscription on records it may throw up a 'no result' when the people are actually there :-)

Grace

as RR said, less information is better than more


If a person has 2 forenames, only use one plus an initial for the second ....... eg, use Grace R not Grace Ruth.

Even try searching only on the first name.


Remember that names are often spelled differently from what you might expect ............... our ancestors were often illiterate, and the census takers were not much better. So there can mis-spellings there. Then the modern-day transcribers had to write down what they saw ....... and bad handwriting leads to errors there.

So always be prepared to use the wild card symbol * to designate possible missing or wrong letter.

You may get some idea of the errors that can occur if I tell you that I found Hayhurst transcribed as Porst in 1851 and Schofield transcribed as Silufeld in 1881 :-D


Always use birth year plus at least 2 years ...... use +5 years if basing your information on the year given in the 1841 census. The age of a person over 15 in 1841 was usually (not always!!) rounded down to the nearest 5.


Use birth county only when searching, not the town or village that you know is where they were born. That often doesn't show as such on censuses.


Be careful using county where they lived on the last census ............... our ancestors moved far more than we think they did!

I've found my Buckinghamshire ancestors in County Durham and in Lancashire!


There are many other tricks that we use to find those who are hiding ........ ranging from searching surname only to searching on forename only, especially if one or the other is quite uncommon.




and, finally, as others have said.

Don't waste your money on credits.

Go to the Find Ancestors Board, and ask for help on there.