1911 census help can't find my Granny!!

[AileenA]

Hi Can anyone help, I've tried and tried to find my Gran on the 1911 census but to no avail. Her parents and siblings are there in Bellshill but she'd left home by 1911. I know she was in service and had thought when the 1911 came out I'd find out where. Her name was Barbara Frame, born Penicuik 9th August 1891, she married in 1913 in Glasgow. There is a Bessie Frame listed on Scots people aged 20 for that year but haven't opened the cert yet. Would Bessie be short for Barbara do you think?? I've tried searching for Babs, Bab etc but unfortunately nothing has come up.
Any advice you can give would be great, I so want to know where she worked and how that ties in with her first husband John Bowers.
Cheers me dears!

[paddyscar]

Hi AileenA:

I checked ScotlandsPeople using: Frame ; b* ; Female ; Age 19-20 and it produced 2 hits, if you change the age to 18-20, there are three.

Had any of the other children left home by the 1911 census? If so, you could search the census for them, using her as a second person in the same house.

Also, if you look at the marriage certificate for Barbara and John Bowers, it would give you employer information, at least for the groom, which may allow you to back-track.

There is only one marriage registration at ScotlandsPeople for: Bowers, J* and Frame, B* in the span 1910 - 1915, and that shows as 1913. Perhaps the marriage registration may give you a clue as to how 'Barbara' would have been registered in the 1911 census.

Hope this helps,
Frances

[AileenA]

Hi thanks for getting back to me and for your suggestions. Any idea how Barbara would be shortened except for Babs? I'm wondering if the Bessie Frame that is listed on Scotlands People is her although I don't think I've any way of proving that.

Yes Barbara and John married in 1913, he's listed as a commercial traveller and she as a domestic servant, so it's not been much help, on the cert both are registered as residing at Vinicombe Street, Glasgow.

She was the only child who had left home, her family home address was Bellshill Lanark.

Looks like I'll never know lol!

[AndrewP]

Hi Aileen,

I took a different approach. I searched for Barbara Fr*, age 18-22. She is there, mis-transcribed as Barbara France. On looking at the census page, you can see where the 'France' transcription came from. if you have spent quite a few SP credits looking for her, you could tell them that she is mis-indexed and ask about a refund of some credits.

All the best,

AndrewP

[AileenA]

=D> Oh! what a genius you are, i'm so very grateful, yes I'll get onto SP asap to gell them of the mistake, wooooohooooo!!!!!
Thanks very much

[Montrose Budie]

Pity the poor indexer !

FRANCE might be thought to be a rather unusual surname in Scotland.

It's actually not that unusual, there being 712 FRANCE births between 1855 and 2009, 656 marriages, and 597 deaths.


Just goes to show, as I've argued for a long time, that the great majority of such 'missing' records aren't missing at all but 'hiding' behind such misspellings, or other situations.

Where it's known that the person or family involved weren't outside Scotland, or hadn't left Scotland, my experience is that 95%+ records, maybe even 99%+ are actually there, but 'hiding' behind misspellings, or obscured for other reasons, - e.g. changes of surname for various reasons involving formal and especially pre-1930 informal adoptions.


The problem can involve a very simple misreading of a surname such as here leading to an incorrect index entry, - 'nc' instead of 'm', - hands up those who can put hand on heart when viewing this image and be sure that it is one or the other. (I'll happily post the image in the Gallery if someone will tell me how to do so.)


I recently came across a situation where a family knew for certain that their granny had passed away in Fenwick, in the County of Ayr in 1901, this knowledge via an In Memoriam notice, and weren't happy with GROS as they could find no matching Scottish death registration.

There were two 'problems'. Firstly the maiden surname ALLISON had been incorrectly recorded as ALISON; and, secondly, she was shown with the surname of her second husband, the family being completely unaware that she had remarried.

Just to make life easy, the death registration did not show the name of her first husband, and the remarriage involved a Sheriff's Warrant, obtained in the Glasgow Sheriff Court after a marriage by declaration.


There are many more similar relatively simple and much more complicated situations.

mb

[AileenA]

=D> Thanks for you help, I contacted SP and they have corrected the entry for Barbara Frame and given me my credits back

[SandySandilands]

Congratuations Aileen.

Well done, Andrew and well done Scotlands People =D>