Genealogy Chat

Hello, This has probably been said before but, if you know the address of the people you are looking for in 1851 it's worth checking the town or village page by page if they don't turn up in a normal name search. I typed in James Wilcock with his year of birth and place of birth and nothing came up. I then tried all possible combinations in the hope of finding him. I even looked for his neighbours. Then I decided to look through the village where he lived in 1861, page by page, and I found him. He was in the same place as 1861 and the page was very easy to read, right birth date and right place of birth. I think that there are pages that have just been missed by the transcibers. Hope this is helpful, Helenxx

Good idea, Helen. Unfortunately all the ones I have 'missing' in 1851 are from Manchester. Heck of a big place, Manchester, even in 1851! I am beginning to suspect they got bored and only half transcribed it! Wonder how long it would take me to go through the whole of Manchester page by page? I have tried reading the descriptions of all the enumeration districts in Manchester, and that took me long enough, but no sign of the roads I wanted. Sob! Tina

Oopps Tina :o( Manchester is a very big place! I was looking in a small village - sorry. But I think you're right that they got bored judging by all the strange mistranscriptions and missing pages. I think they should have paid us to do it - I'm sure we'd have done a better job. Helenxx

Hi Helen I have just had the same experience. Dinnington in Northumberland was only transcribed up to page 11 of 14. My people were on page 13! Unlucky for some Beth :)

I've just had an email from Ancestry telling me that the 1851 census will be available soon. Maybe they're in the process of finishing it off and hopefully when it launches properly all our people will be easier to find, well here's hoping anyway because my Manchester people seem to hiding just now. Rachel

Which site address are you using Jeanie? I'm using http:/content(.)ancestry(.)co(.)uk/Browse/list(.)aspx?dbid=8860&path= and this has the counties at the bottom. Helenxx

If you look below the first search box for 1851 there's a list of pieces with stuff missing. Seems to include rather a lot of Manchester :O(( Merry

Oh fiddlesticks! See what you mean, Merry. I had not noticed that list before, although I have looked at several Manchester based census pages which were obviously quite badly damaged in part. Bother, no chance of finding them then. What a pain. Hope to goodness the 1841 is in a better state, or if it isn't, that the areas of damage are different! Tina

Hi all, Just thought I'd add my own 'tip' for those of you having trouble locating people - this works for all years, obviously, not just 1851. As most of us are aware, on many of the census, people in hospitals, workhouses, prisons etc, were only listed by their initials. Try putting the initials in the name boxes, with any other identifying info (year and place of birth, etc) you might just be able to pick them out!! After the list of people with those initials, keep going through the list. I have just done a search for G H's. Eventually I came to things like: Mar H??? Fanny H??d K?? H??s Yours could just be there, but entered in a way that no amount of searching would find them!! Debbie