1851 census now on Scotlandspeople! .....

[AnneH]

The 1851 census has been numbered in at least three different systems.

Thanks for your explanation Andrew.

And WHOOPEE! I've just found them online. The TARLTONs were under the name of FASTLAN. Having looked at the image, it is a bit unclear so I can understand how they got FASTLAN from it.

An interesting time was had using wildcards to narrow things down.

Thanks for everyones help.
Anne

[jennyblain]

In the online 1851 census at ScotlandsPeople the family have been indexed as "KNAGGE".

1851 KNAGGE GEORGE M 2 GREENOCK NEW OR MIDDLE /RENFREW 564/00 028/00 011 No Image

1851 KNAGGE GEORGE M 30 GREENOCK NEW OR MIDDLE /RENFREW 564/00 028/00 011 No Image

The bad news is that there's no image !

In other words the G&WFHS indexer clearly saw the record as "KNAGGS" but the GROS overseas sub-contractor read it as "KNAGGE".

David

Thanks David, for clearing this up, and thanks Jack! I tried many versions but didn't do 'Knagg?' which I'll remember for future... I'm just back from a couple of meetings in the south and will get back to looking for the 'Blain' family in Greenock in the 1851 census. As there is no image for the Knaggs I won't bother with this further just now, especially as I do have quite a bit of information about this family at that time, unlike the Blains where I don't know who was in the household.

The transcription accuracy business is an issue, though. On the one hand, I've much praise for the GROS initiative and from talking to English friends I know how very much better off we are in terms of access to records. On the other, when the 1861 census came out I found Blain transcribed as Blair - when it was very clearly, from the image, an N not an R. So of course this time I've tried Blain, Blair, Blane, and spent numerous credits to get absolutely nowhere at all with this family... anybody got further suggestions for things to try..?

Jenny

[DavidWW]

In the online 1851 census at ScotlandsPeople the family have been indexed as "KNAGGE".

1851 KNAGGE GEORGE M 2 GREENOCK NEW OR MIDDLE /RENFREW 564/00 028/00 011 No Image

1851 KNAGGE GEORGE M 30 GREENOCK NEW OR MIDDLE /RENFREW 564/00 028/00 011 No Image

The bad news is that there's no image !

In other words the G&WFHS indexer clearly saw the record as "KNAGGS" but the GROS overseas sub-contractor read it as "KNAGGE".

David

Thanks David, for clearing this up, and thanks Jack! I tried many versions but didn't do 'Knagg?' which I'll remember for future... I'm just back from a couple of meetings in the south and will get back to looking for the 'Blain' family in Greenock in the 1851 census. As there is no image for the Knaggs I won't bother with this further just now, especially as I do have quite a bit of information about this family at that time, unlike the Blains where I don't know who was in the household.

The transcription accuracy business is an issue, though. On the one hand, I've much praise for the GROS initiative and from talking to English friends I know how very much better off we are in terms of access to records. On the other, when the 1861 census came out I found Blain transcribed as Blair - when it was very clearly, from the image, an N not an R. So of course this time I've tried Blain, Blair, Blane, and spent numerous credits to get absolutely nowhere at all with this family... anybody got further suggestions for things to try..?

Jenny

Jenny

Don't use KNAGG? as that won't find plain KNAGG, - I'd suggest KNAGG*, as the "*" can mean any number of characters or no character, whereas with "?" there must be a character; or even KNAG* .......

Getting really complicated and catering for a missing, leading "K", you might at some point have to use *NAGG* ......................

TalkingScot is an unusual site in that a leading wildcard is allowed.

For BLAIR etc., I'd probably start with BLA*, setting limits in terms of ages and/or locations if there are too many hits; with the back up search term of BLA??, which will only produce hits with 2 letters after the "BLA", but that search term wouldn't find BLAINE....... , ... so that a quick whirl with BLA??? could be worth a try ................

It really helps to have a twisted logical mind

I've tried on several occasions to write a comprehensive guide to using wildcards, but have always given up because so much depends on the particular name involved.

The key is to persist in playing about with wildcards until the number of hits becomes reasonable and/or the record is found.

The really fun bit is that the lack of success can simply be because the record doesn't exist, or, worse, the name was mis-heard and/or mis-transcribed in such extreme ways so that even the most expert wildcard search won't ever find it.

"Worse" in the sense that it's one thing if an event was never recorded, or took place outside Scotland, but if you are 100% certain that the record should be in the Scottish records, then it's plain frustration !

But remember always that it might have been the case that auld Uncle Wullie was furth of Auld Scotia for the first time in his life, visiting relatives, close or distant, or his childhood friend, when he had a heart attack and popped his clogs ...... If that happened abroad, then, in theory there could be a consular record in Scotland, but, as I found out some years ago when registering my aunt's death in Portugal, and wanted to have the record in the UK records as well, the phrase "an arm and a leg" comes to mind in terms of the cost

Which is a way of introducing the need, in the case of "flying saucer" records to have a lateral think in terms of, for example, what collateral lines have moved outside Scotland? It's far from uncommon for older people to move in with kids, not just elsewhere in the UK, but also in N America, or Australasia, - I can quote you examples.

Or for kids to be parked/informally adopted not just with relatives a few streets away, but many 1,000 miles away .................

95 times out of a 100 the record will be somewhere in Scotland, but in those other 5 more unusual cases, you may well have to consider unusual solutions not just in terms of spelling but just where the person concerned may have ended up ........

David

[LesleyB]

It's far from uncommon for older people to move in with kids, not just elsewhere in the UK, but also in N America, or Australasia

Just had an experience of that...
A lady last seen in the 1881 aged 73 living with her sister, both unmarried school teachers. Her sister died in 1889, but the lady in question was not the death informant but you'd still think it should be easy enough to find her death.....well, its only taken me about a year and totally amazed me when I found it! She left for Canada following the death of her sister - aged 81!!!!! She went off to live with her half sisters and died there - obituary was in local Canadian press:
"The deceased was born in Kettle, Fifeshire, Scotland and came to Galt Nov. 1899, where she resided with her sisters, Margaret and Agnes, 58 Oak Street, until the time of her death."

Just shows ya! I would never have believed it had the obituary left no doubt that it was the same person...

Best wishes
Lesley

[jennyblain]

Jenny

Don't use KNAGG? as that won't find plain KNAGG,

Ah. Had aready tried KNAGG, Nagg, Naggs, Nags, Knags, Nagges, Knagges and most other possibilities, just not a wildcard for the end as that had not come up before and because the name, in Scotland, is so unusual that the possibilities for it seemed to be all testable, and clear in other census or marriage, etc. records ... however I could have typed either ? or * into the post I made earlier this evening, but decided ? was more clear for readers

The 'Blain' one does baffle me. Have done various 'Bla*' things. which on the whole produce more people than I want to know about or can explore without breaking the bank. But I'll persist...

Jenny