Using Genealogy Records Online: Problems With Family Surnames And Christian Names
There is no doubt that the internet has made life a lot easier for family historians, both professional and amateur. Many indexes and some documents are now available to view online that previously could only be seen by travelling to an archives office. However, online research is not without its problems. The indexes used for searching genealogy records online have often been copied and transcribed several times, and this inevitably produces errors, particularly with family surnames and Christian names.
The main indexes you will probably use online are the indexes to the census records, and the Birth, Marriage and Death indexes. If you have used these and had difficulty in finding a particular ancestor, then do not give up, particularly with the census. While it is possible that a birth was not registered, especially during the early years of civil registration, the census should include every person alive on the night of the census, with just a few exceptions.
Therefore, if you cannot find your ancestor on the census, and you have tried all locations, and you are fairly sure that they were not living in a different country at that time, then it is more likely that there has been some kind of error with the spelling of the name.
Errors are far more common than you might think. Remember that these indexes have been copied from handwriting, which can often be very difficult to read. Sometimes, it is not even the transcribers fault. Originally, the names were written by enumerators who visited each house and were given the names of the household verbally. Consequently, many names would be written down as they were heard, which could be quite different to what you know as the original.
Sometimes, mistakes just seem arbitrary. To give you an example, I tried for a very long time to find my grandfather, Francis McEwen on the 1871 census. As he was later known as Francis MANLEY, I had tried every possible spelling of both surnames on the Ancestry indexes, using the phonetic search, and trying out every possible spelling of McEwen (which are many!).
In desperation, I took out the Christian name and tried the search just using McEwen in the search box. There was a long list of results, but eventually I found this entry:
Fracis McEwen, born about 1865, Ardwick, Manchester.
Bingo!
Did you see the mistake in the Christian name? All that was missing was that little “n”. At first this looked like a spelling error on the part of the transcriber, but when I looked at the original census document, I found that it had been written that way by the enumerator!
This one little discovery led to a whole new breakthrough in my McEwen ancestry and uncovered a mystery surrounding my grandfather’s parentage.
So, if you are having difficulty finding your ancestor on these indexes, spend some time trying different name spellings. Make sure the “exact spelling” box is unchecked to enable a phonetic search, but do not rely on this. There has been many a time when I have found an ancestor by trying a different spelling myself when it had not come up under a phonetic search.
On most indexes you can search for a surname without a Christian name, or vice versa, and it is certainly worth doing this if you are getting no results. However, if you are searching a very common surname or Christian name this will bring you far too many results to be of any use.
Using genealogy records online is not as straight forward as it may seem, and there is a real knack to using the online indexes. The main thing is not to give up; just keep trying different spellings of your family surnames and Christian names, being as imaginative as you can. Don’t forget to try variations of all the other search criteria, such as location and relationship too. Even male and female have been known to get muddled up during the transcription.
Ros is a professional genealogist and runs a UK ancestry tracing service for international researchers who need help with their UK ancestry. Find more articles like this, useful links and resources, or use Ros’s research services at Tracing Your Ancestors In The UK
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