Genealogy Chat

Hello everyone I have recently subscribed to Ancestry and am still finding my way around . I would really appreciate any tips on how to find families that may have been mistranscribed . An example : My Gr nan is listed as Baggington 1881 Paginton 1891 and Ragington 1901. Is there another way of searching without going through every letter of alphabet ? Many thanks Ann

Try just putting their forename, birth area and year +- and area you think they may be, it helps most of the time, sometimes the name is transcribed to nothing like it should be though like Harrison to Horwich? or they change their birth area, like Newton to chapel farm, so watch out for it:

Hi Carrie Thanks for the advice Have tried most of what you have said but as this line were Romani they tended to chop and change birth place and ages etc . Ann

Have you used the soundex search instead of the exact spelling search? Kath. x

Hi Kath Yes tried that and everything else I can think of . Thanks anyway . Ann

You could try looking for some of the neighbours (in a census which you have already) in the next census before or after on the off chance that neither family has moved over the ten years between censusses. A long shot but it might pay off. Choose men or mature married ladies whose name is less likely to have changed, and in the prime of life, so less likely to have died. Update. Have just realised that as Romanis they are not likely to stay at the same address for ten years.

It sometimes easier to find a sibling who has a more unusual name. There will be thousands of Marys born 1850 +/- 2 but maybe only a few dozen Jabez or Darius etc. Try searching just on county of birth rather than actual town.

It can take a lot of patience for first names try Initials. I found one for someone else just now calling her self rather grandly Miss L. .... try to find out victorian abbreviations of a name e.g. Saunders for Alexander, Nellie for Eleanor. try near by counties. The county boundaries have changed over time try old place names e.g. Castletown for Douglas Isle of Man.

I've seen cases where the first name and surname have been transcribed back to front. Wildcards (? for 1 character; * for an indefinite number of characters) can be useful, but you have to have at least three letters before a wildcard on Ancestry. That means the beginning of the name has to have been correctly transcribed for you to get a real hit. e.g. BEN* would get BENNETT, BENET, BENGE, BENHAM, BENT, BENEY... and so on anything starting BEN... BEN? would get only 4-letter names where the first three are BEN. BEN*T would get any name starting BEN and ending with T, however long. In your case, it might be worth trying the first three letters + a * to pick up any names where just the end has been garbled. Christine

Roger, Helen , Annie and Christine . Thank you very much for your advice . I have tried again today using some of your suggestions , sadly my Romanis still remain elusive . Oh well , back to searching . Ann