NOT SP !!!

Currie · Post by **Currie** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:14 am

The only expensive thing about English research is the cost of Certificates. The best way to avoid this expense is not to purchase them. While it’s fairly normal to buy every available Scottish certificate I think a different approach can be taken as regards the English variety. The English is ten times the price and a tenth as informative when compared to the Scottish.

I would avoid them unless it was absolutely essential to establish an important link. It is possible to build rock-solid English family trees at very little cost using census and free indexes.

The best thing about the English system is that had it not been introduced we might be still playing around, worldwide, with Parish Records. The worst thing about it is that it has changed so little in almost 200 years.

The English indexes are always freely available and searchable online up to around 1920, and are particularly useful after 1911. They are also free, in image form, up to the 1980s via the frequent Ancestry freebees or otherwise via a short term subscription. The Scottish indexes are not much more useful but are not free.

As far as Census returns are concerned you can download an unlimited number of English and Welsh census images during the frequent 3 day Ancestry freebees. The cost of Scottish Census images is 5 for 6 Pounds even if they are the wrong ones. You can purchase a whole month’s access to English and Welsh records on Ancestry for 10 Pounds.

During that time you can download an unlimited number of census images. Not 8 but 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 and if you get a wrong one you keep downloading for the rest of your available time until you get the right one. On top of that you get a much more sophisticated search facility and transcriptions thrown in as a bonus.

There are many factors to weigh up when comparing the cost of English and Scottish research but if you stay away from English certificates there’s really no comparison.

All the best,
Alan

garibaldired · Post by **garibaldired** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:54 am

Maureen,
So sorry

should read the poster's details more closely!

Alan, I'm afraid I'd disagree with you about buying English certificates. You can pick up so much information from marriage certificates in particular from addresses and witnesses. Plus a lot can happen in the 10 year gap between censuses, babies can be born and die and without the birth (or death) certificate you wouldn't know.

Regards,
Meg

davran · Post by **davran** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:04 pm

Meg, I agree with you. The censuses are only as accurate as the information given to the enumerator. People did not always know how old they were, or they had a non-local accent or bad handwriting that the enumerator could not understand. It can also be very difficult to find people in the census indexes due to the mistranscription of names.

mallog · Post by **mallog** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:10 pm

Agreed. I have just found some census info via the Ancestry freebie that I would not have got on SP due to the mistranscription of the names (but I still go for the Scottish system. ) Makes me wonder about folk I can't find. I know they are dead but when ???