1851 & 1861 Scottish Censuses on Ancestry.com today ....

[Jean Jeanie]

This gets more and more ridiculous!

My latest find:-

Andrew Neill born in Uphall abt 1828....sooooooo the correct one.

Address:-

Zue Onaf Aryroad Nennll
St Michaels
Linlithgow.

Jean

[Bertha]

Hi All
Finally got a reply from Ancestry who regretted I hadn't been able to find my family but suggested I phone one of their paid researchers who could either do the research or talk me through how to do it!
As you can imagine, I gave them short shrift.
Suggested they ought to look at the information on their census transciptions and see for themselves the errors you have all highlighted.
Anyway goodnight all of to bed
Bertha
PS
By the way finally found them in the 1841 due to a little something I had missed on the 1851 (using SP offcourse). A whole load of other children too!

[AndrewP]

Zue Onaf Aryroad Nennll

A look at the census page showed Queensferry Road, but the word squashed in underneath was not clear. That took a read at the "free header page" to see the Enumerator's area described. Mystery solved.

Queensferry Road Kennel

A look at an old map showed the location on the edge of the grounds of Bonnytown house. Or in modern terms, on the Queensferry Road, leading out of Linlithgow, close to the end of Linlithgow Loch.

All the best,

AndrewP

[pinkshoes]

At David's suggestion I'm posting this wee tale. I did post last night, but after a quick look on SP I thought I was doing Ancestry is disservice and removed the post. However ...

I found the Stewart family of Drem in 1851 on Freecen a long time ago, so I knew they were there, but I was short of a daughter so decided to have another look. To refresh my memory I thought I'd look at Ancestry index for the father, James Stewart. Nada. But I found the family by searching for daughter Marianne. The index showed Marianne and a bunch of sibling Stewarts, mother Anne Stewart and father James Hewart, all at the same address.

I did my rant on here, then check on SP and found that indeed James is indexed there as Hewart, but so are the rest of the family Unfortunately there is no image available on SP so I can't have a look.

So, isn't it a bit odd that SP have the whole family as Hewart, yet Ancestry have decided they are all Stewart bar the father?

Best wishes
Pinkshoes

[David Lang]

I have had some fantastic variation in the 1851 census and even the 1861 , i am glad i knew where they were born as it allowed me to narrow down the possibilities before looking on SP for the image.

All in all , its free , so we shouldnt complain too much

[DavidWW]

I have had some fantastic variation in the 1851 census and even the 1861 , i am glad i knew where they were born as it allowed me to narrow down the possibilities before looking on SP for the image.

All in all , its free , so we shouldnt complain too much

Free ?!??!, - for how long ?

It's my understanding that after the 3 day free trial offer, and any other parallel free access for a limited period offers, these indexes will only then be available on a subscription basis on Ancestry ...............

Examples at least of your "fantastic variations" would be greatly appreciated here.

David

[AnneM]

My ancestor Philip Assur is indexed variously as Asner and Assum on the different censuses. Makes him v difficult to find but I know he's there. As for the famous Grothenwells........well even SP had a problem with them so I should not carp too much.

My Daniel McKenzie is beautifully indexed in 1851 as living at McKenzie's Land. Kyleshill Street, Saltcoats but his occupation is given as Farmerly Shoomake Fropeaker of Heads Pauper. Now I happen to know this should read Formerly Shoemaker, Proprietor of House, Pauper because I have endless jokes about being the proprietor of a house and a pauper running in the family but I'd be sorry for anyone who was relying on finding the occupation to confirm they had the right person!

What I don't understand is how do they get the quite difficult address right and the fairly obvious occupation so wrong????

Anne

[SarahND]

What I don't understand is how do they get the quite difficult address right and the fairly obvious occupation so wrong????\

I'm wondering if they don't have that famous team of humans only checking part of the OCR output. Perhaps they felt that the occupations would be less crucial and thus in the interest of time they just accepted the OCR output as is? I also note that the 1851 seems to have many more OCR-type errors than the 1861, so I'll bet the method of arriving at the index was different in some ways and relied more on machines and less on human input. Just guessing.

Regards,
Sarah

[Anne H]

The 1851 and 1861 errors on mine where insignificant, just looked like obvious ‘typos’, but when the 1841 Census first came on Ancestry I had paid for a limited subscription (which was really a waste of money since I couldn’t get the hang of the site and ended up losing the credits because time expired), anyway, I know that the name of Devlin is somehow connected to our family, but don't know where it connects, so I got all excited when I saw the names Devlin-Harty in the same household…I thought I’d finally found something to solve one of my brick walls, so off I went to SP and pulled up the “real thing” only to find that there was no Harty anywhere to be found. The names started off with John Devlin and the following family members had “Do” in place of their surname. When it got down the list to 70 yr old Mary, Ancestry had her listed as Mary Devlin Harty and the names after that were “Do”. I didn't even need the magnifying glass to see the name was obviously "Doharty" and not "Devlin Harty". So, not only did I lose money on Ancestry, but I also lost money on SP going after a certificate that wasn’t for my family. That said though, I do think the “free” index is nice to have (even if it is aggravating and doesn’t give me what I want) and I did find some “in-laws” that I wouldn’t have otherwise looked for on SP.

Regards,
Anne H

[AnneM]

How about these ones.

Family in Leith 1861

William McSween Head 22
Elizabeth Raid Wife 22
William McQulla son 4 months.

Any guesses for their real name?

Anne

PS Young William is actually 14 months old and I found him by searching every William with parents William and Elizabeth.