It's often worthwhile designing a search so that it results a number of results, for example where the surname is rare, or where you're interested in a surname in a particular district. There can be up to 25 results on a single page, at a cost of 1 credit, so try to go for the 25. E.g. search for Deaths, "TOWERS"; County: Renfrew; Year From: 1912; Year To: 1954, 25 results. Or if it's 2 pages, try to go for 50 results - try selecting districts - up to 5 at a time - to narrow the search. Even if you're currently only looking for one particular individual, there's a good chance that some of the others could be relevant later. Even once you've narrowed the search down so it returns 25 results, try to expand it a little. E.g. if 1866-1913 returns 25 results, try 1865-1913, 1866-1914 etc until you go over the 25 and have to go back one year. I.e. try to get the most extensive search for your 1 credit - you may well want to go back to this search later while looking for another individual.
I often have a browser window open searching the IGI, or FreeCEN at the same time as Scotlandspeople. In Scotlandspeople, you can't for example, search for all children of given parents - you have to know their names to search for them. So find them first if possible other places and then search Scotlandspeople. At
http://www.scotsorigins.com/ you can search the IGI using other options than on the
http://www.familysearch.org/ site. E.g. search for all children of given parents in a given parish.
You can also take advantage of the searches themselves being free on Scotlandspeople - it's only if you want to see the result that it costs something. See the folloing:
Example: Search Statutory Register (SR) Deaths
Euphemia Rennie, born ca. 1846, married 1871 to John Pritchard.
Search for death, Euphemia Rennie, 1871- 1954. 32 results, 2 pages.
Reduce search til it fits on 1 page: 1871-1932 - 25 results. Pay 1 credit for that search.
This result: 1919 RENNIE EUPHEMIA MCGEEC F 73 HILLHEAD LANARK looks promising - age fits, and the location.
Now search for Euphemia Pritchard, aged 73, died 1919 in Hillhead, Lanark. Returns 1 result: it’s her. For the moment I’m not all that interested - I’ve discovered the year and place of her death. The middle name (probably McGeech) is interesting . I haven’t come across it before. Maybe I’ll have a look some time in the future if I have extra credits, in the meantime I won’t spend the 1 credit to get the exact result of the search, or the subsequent 5 credits to download the image. This is a typical example of trying to save credits - she's a remote relative, not a direct ancestor, so I'm not willing to spend a lot of money right now following that line.
Result: Euphemia Pritchard, nee Rennie died aged 73, in1919 in Hillhead, Lanark
Total cost: 1 credit
Example: Search Statutory Register (SR) Marriages
and Search Statutory Register (SR) Births
From 1881 census - Rennie family, Govan. Flora Rennie, aged 16, born in Irvine, Ayrshire (her mother Jane born same place). I.e. born between 4th April 1864 and 4th April 1865 (the census was taken on the night of 3rd-4th April 1881 - earliest possible date is if she turned 17 on 4th April 1881 and the census taker appeared before midnight, latest possible date is if she turned 16 on 4th April and the census taker appeared after midnight.)
1901: David Rennie dies, widow Jeanie Muirhead.
Search for marriage: David Rennie, Jeanie Muirhead, no matches. Neither are there matches with Jean* (note on wildcard searches: * matches any number of characters -including none, ? matches one character only -e.g. THOM*SON matches both THOMSON, THOMPSON, THOMASON, THOMASSON, etc. THOM?SON will match THOMPSON and THOMASON but not the others
Replace Jeanie with Jane, 1 match. Narrow it down to 1870, Glasgow (could have narrowed it down to district, but couldn’t be bothered). So Flora born before that wedding. Search for births, Flora Rennie 1864-1865, Ayr, Irvine. 0 matches. Replace Rennie with Muirhead, 1 match. 1864-1864 1 match.
Result: David Rennie married Jane Muirhead in Glasgow in 1870.
Result: Flora Muirhead born in Irvine, Ayrshire in 1864.
Total cost: 0 credits
Example: Search Statutory Register (SR) Deaths
Search for death cert for. Sarah Wray, nee Davis. Was 38 yrs old in 1881 census, so should be born between 4-apr-1842 and 4-apr-1843. Search for deaths, all years, all counties, Sarah Wray. 9 results. Married women are usually also indexed under their maiden names, so try Sarah Davis. 57 results. So Wray is a rarer name, try this first. The family lived in Port Glasgow in 1881, so let's try Renfrewshire, Port Glasgow district, and Sarah Wray, deaths from 1881 and from age 38 upwards. (note: not all age of deaths are indexed - those not indexed are set to 131, so if you set an upper limit of 100 years of age, you won't find these). 1 result. Try replacing Wray with Davis and do the same search. If there are no results, then we shouldn't be looking in Port Glasgow. 1 result. That's better than I'd hoped - there could easily have been more. Now find the year of death, changing the surname back to Wray, and try 1900-1943. Remember to set the district, Port Glasgow, each time - it gets reset. 1 result. 1920-1943 1 result. 1930-1943 0 results. 1920-1925 0 results. 1926-1928 1 results. 1926-1926 1 result. Now try to find the age. In 1926, she should have been about 83. Try ages 81-85 1 result. 81-83 1 result. 81-81 0 results 82-82 1 result. Now replace Wray with Davis, all other criteria as before 1 result. That must be her.
Result: Sarah Wray nee Davis died aged 82 in Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, in 1926.
Total cost 0 credits.
