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Monday 3 August 2009

Frustrating searches on 1861 census

I've just spent a couple of hours looking for people on the 1861 census - both on Ancestry and on FreeCen. There are several people I'm missing from that year - in fact a large proportion of the people in my family tree who were around then! I belatedly bothered to check how good the coverage of Lincolnshire is on FreeCen and found it isn't anywhere near complete! I suspect spelling errors or transcription errors are the problem with the ones I can't find on Ancestry. I think 1861 is the year I've had most problems with so far. I also suspect the Ancestry site was busy today because of the records of Old Bailey trials being newly available.

Looking on the bright side I've ordered a copy of the birth certificate for a half sister of my great grandmother because I want to see who her mother was and therefore who my great great grandfather's second wife was so that will make interesting reading when I get it.

2 comments:

NAM said...

I have much the same problem but with the 1851 Cenusus, oddly enough! William Meades the mason is only one of those that I can't find on it, and in his case he not only has a common name, he could be anywhere because he obviously had to travel around to where there was work for him - hence pitching up at West Ham by 1860, where there was a decision made to restore the old church rather than pull it down.

Yes, certificates are always rather exciting, I think. So much information! And in this case a whole extra bit of family, in that there are her ancestors and descendants to consider...can't have too many relations!

Jilly said...

You get people on Ancestry with thousands of people in their family tress - I'm nearly up to 160 but I'm fairly confident that 90% of them are correct so I shall continue to make progress slowly.