Genealogy Chat

i am quite suprised that some people do not realise that most central libraries offer these facilities for free....not as convenient as the net i know but i found the librarians very helpful and knowledgable. It is worth going there as i found the net sites are not always complete.

That is where we started - records offices, main library, and, as you say, the staff are very helpful. :-) Joy

I think a lot of people do realise it. It's just that in today's world we get a bit lazy, and I for one like the convenience of being able to search from the comfort of my own home. I know it costs this way, but I don't drive so taking into account bus fares and time involved, I think it's worth it. Kath. x

Hi John Although my local central library have bmd for the country, which i have searched on many occasions, they don't hold census records other than for Buckinghamshire. Al my rellies are from up north. Julie

Yes, I thoroughly recommend going to the records office in the area you are researching but your local central library and/or records office may not have what you are looking for. Although, as you say, many central libraries have GRO BMD indexes they often don't hold the complete index - our local County Record Office for example only has births and marriages up to about 1920, no deaths and nothing more recent as they don't have the funding to purchase the rest of the fiche. Also they will usually only have census returns for their own county, and probably access to the 1881 census index and to the same online sites we can access at home. For the earlier censuses you would need to travel to the appropriate area.

I didn't know that ! Don't think they would have what I need in an Aussie library tho.

For those in Australia - my husband has a cousin there who goes to the LDS Family History Centre for parish registers and BMDs. Joy

It appears to be the case that the microfiche version of the GRO indexes was compiled before the 1837Online version. It is known that some pages were accidentally omited from the microfiche version, but conversly there are more handwritten volumes on it, so fewer typing errors. As regards censuses, hell can freeze over while you wait for census images to down load, even on the faster broadband. It is not merely the individual that I will be interested in, but his household, his neighbours, his street or his village. I often don't know what I am looking for until I've found it and as I have found several people on censuses given the wrong Christian names or surnames there is no way they could be located on any index. Having found a missing ancestor after many years fruitless searching, I am not knocking indexes, but I do now need to look at the microfilm, to put him into some sort of spatial context.

Brenda, I agree it is much quicker searching censuses on fiche, film or CD. The net can be a VERY slow way of doing it. I can whip through pages of census by these methods and often find things I did not know I was looking for. It is MUCH more satisfying, in my opinion. On the other hand I do understand that many people are unable, through many reasons, to use these resources and for them the net must be a godsend. Anne