name on Freecen-can't find on Scotlandspeople .....

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:02 pm

Can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong on Scotlandspeople? I have Henry Glen, age 32, born Bannockburn in Wilton, Roxburghshire in 1851 on Freecen(Piece SCT1851/810 Folio 0 Page 56 Schedule 225) but no wildcard I can think of produces a result on Scotlandspeople. I'd like to know what I'm doing wrong in the hope that it might help me find others lost in the Bermuda Triangle parish.
Elisabeth

Post by **joette** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:30 pm

Elizabeth I had a similiar problem with an Ayr entry I tried every variation on their name but could find nothing.
I sent a contact form to SP with the folio no etc & had a very apologetic e-mail saying that they could not find the name indexed under any variation either.They refunded the credits I had used in my search & told me how to access the page (using somebody else's name) It didn't contain any info that wasn't on Freecen but I wanted to see the original.
I haven't checked to see if they had reindexed but they will eventually.I suggest you follow this route.

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:44 pm

Hi Elisabeth

I liked your reference to the Bermuda Triangle

!

I think SP has your Henry as Kenny......

1851 GLEN KENNY M 32 WILTON /ROXBURGH 810/00 001/00 056

Best wishes
Jean

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:51 pm

Thanks for both your replies. I tried every variation of Glen and names starting with "Hen"-never thought of putting Kenny.

Now I've just got to find his sister-in-law, Margaret Chalmers.
Elisabeth

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Wed May 03, 2006 5:21 pm

Hi Elisabeth

I didn't enter Kenny either!.

...just went with plain ol Glen with no first name and either M or F but exact age of 32 in Wilton. There was only one. Is Margaret Chalmers spose to be in Wilton too?

If you need another assist don't hesitate to yell.....

Best wishes
Jean

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Wed May 03, 2006 6:14 pm

elisabeth wrote:Thanks for both your replies. I tried every variation of Glen and names starting with "Hen"-never thought of putting Kenny. Now I've just got to find his sister-in-law, Margaret Chalmers.
Elisabeth

When all else fails, always try all possible variant readings of the capital letter, or, if possible in terms of numbers of hits that result, a leading wildcard, which is permitted on ScotlandsPeople.

David

JimM · Post by **JimM** » Wed May 03, 2006 9:43 pm

elisabeth wrote:never thought of putting Kenny

"Kenny"

It makes me wonder if the transcribers were instructed to use a bit of common sense?

The word could look like either Henry or Kenny ... but what is it more likely to be on the 1851 census?
Surely the enumerator would have written Kenneth and not "Kenny".

For example run a search for Henry Smith .... you get 138 matches
For Kenneth Smith you'll get 19 matches
Try Kenny Smith and it's zilch

Jim

elisabeth · Post by **elisabeth** » Thu May 04, 2006 7:24 am

That's what I thought, Jim,especially as Freecen could get it right.
Elisabeth

DavidWW · Post by **DavidWW** » Thu May 04, 2006 8:54 am

I guess that the difference is that FreeCen is a volunteer project, so that the volunteers can take as long as they like to look at a record, and I seem to recall hearing that there's a procedure for referring problematic entries to experts.

The transcription and editing for GROS and Ancestry, however, is done by sub-contractors whose employees have restrictions on the time that they can spend on each entry. Even a double-keying procedure can't be guaranteed to pick up such problems consistently. (I think that it was the 1861 census where the given name appears in the SP index as "Jea", which is indeed what it looks like, except that I knew that I was looking for an "Ina"

)

David