Tony Lund Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 It is approaching the time when I will have a number of mystery men left from Holmfirth who do not immediately seem to be traceable. Some will have died as civilians after the fighting was over. Some may be Merchant Seaman, I even know of a Holmfirth lad killed with the United States Marines. It seems to me that some of the techniques used by the family history researchers are the best hope of finding some these men. I am aware of some of them. I know about the £5 vouchers from the library for the 1901 census, and the free 1881 census on line. But there is obviously more available than that. We sometimes hear on the Forum of Overseas Death and Local Death Indexes and registers, and I know that there are online fee based websites that have access to this type of thing. I have had a look through the free Birth, Marriages and Deaths site myself, and I can see that it would be helpful if I could check out certain difficult individuals in as many sources possible. My question is what are the most useful and economic sources from a memorial research perceptive? Tony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denise Ford Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 My quickest and most economical method has been to join Ancestry.com, although it doesn't always have 100% accuracy. I also use the free family history website www.rootschat.com who have amazing people on there who search for free - although you can't guarantee a response. If you have anything i can help you search with, bearing in mind i can access ancestry anyway do let me know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Clay Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 Many useful resources, Tony, and some of 'em ARE free! The GRO Birth, Marriage & Death indexes are available on various pay sites but can be checked for free on freeBMD (volunteer transcription project, ongoing, incomplete) and on Ancestry.co.uk (images of the GRO index books, in theory complete). Tedious trawling, but the death indexes could identify possibles for further investigation. Censuses - several Pals have Ancestry subscriptions and if you post known info on the men you're researching this can often produce the census data to enable further research. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajsmith Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 My local library ,here in Staffordshire, has subscribed to ancestry.com so you can go along and check all the censuses for free(1841-1901). Worth checking if yours has done the same. FreeBMD is pretty complete before 1910 and although the BMD indexes in Ancestry claim to be complete there is a quite serious error with the indexing of the pages which takes some trickery to circumvent ( I won't bore you with the details, unless you ask) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_Hartley Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 Tony I've found that a combination of the 1901 Census and the BMD sites will tick off many of them. In my neck of the woods, we also have CheshireBMD and there may be something similar your way. I don't know its background but it appears to be a separate project and, therefore, picks up some names not on FreeBMD. The difficulty, of course, with the "died at homes after the war" will be trying to establish that the Fred Bloggs who died in 1920 is the same Fred Bloggs on the memorial. Out of my, roughly, 2800 Stockport names there's about 40 I just can't identify with any degree of certainty. Good luck. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Burnett Posted 9 July , 2006 Share Posted 9 July , 2006 Found all the points raised interesting as I am having problem with 3 on Burntisland War Memorial. You get a gut feeling it is this one but unable to make the 100% connection. I also ploughed through local papers, note plural, as some deaths were only reported in 1. Besides reports the death notices sometimes had an anniversary message. Got some in papers who were added after memorial was erected in 1921. I was going to get Voters Rolls but they do not exist for here. Next step Valuation Rolls and Old Town Council books. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Lund Posted 10 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 10 July , 2006 Thanks for the information. I am lucky with the memorials in Holmfirth. The 300 names on the main one are divided into districts and there are 12 other smaller village or church memorials or plaques. So far men with the same or similar names have very conveniently lived at opposite ends of the place. I would think the deaths index will be the most useful, once a date of death is established the local papers can be checked. I have a few mill owners sons in this district, would the Times be worth checking? I believe that it is available on CD at libraries, I shall have to check next time I am in there. Tony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Clay Posted 10 July , 2006 Share Posted 10 July , 2006 Tony The Times archive is online - and many library services have subscriptions which allow library users to access it from home - worth checking! You may well be able to check on your library service website. Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Lund Posted 10 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 10 July , 2006 Thanks, I will look into that. Tony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest geoff501 Posted 10 July , 2006 Share Posted 10 July , 2006 although the BMD indexes in Ancestry claim to be complete there is a quite serious error with the indexing of the pages which takes some trickery to circumvent ( I won't bore you with the details, unless you ask) I've just found one problem, the search did not give a result for one particular quarter. I got around it by feeding in the preceding surname, it then found the page - and also the entry I was searching for. Of course it may not work looking for Smith. Is this the problem, or can you bore me with more details? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajsmith Posted 10 July , 2006 Share Posted 10 July , 2006 I've just found one problem, the search did not give a result for one particular quarter. I got around it by feeding in the preceding surname, it then found the page - and also the entry I was searching for. Of course it may not work looking for Smith. Is this the problem, or can you bore me with more details? You've worked out the fix. The problems is caused by them entering the last name on the sheet regardless of whether it's an in sequence typed entry or a written later amendment. The written entries are not in sequence hence the search thinks that the amendment is , alphabetically, the last entry on the page. I'm not sure if I've made myself very clear but if you look at a quarter that goes missing you'll see what I mean. I hope. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Lund Posted 10 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 10 July , 2006 The Times archive is online - and many library services have subscriptions which allow library users to access it from home - worth checking! It seems that Huddersfield can only supply access via microfilm just now, useful but of course no search facility on a piece of film. Still they should at least have it available from the library computers soon. Tony. Dear Tony, The Reference Library has the Times Digital Archive 1785-1985 on line. At the moment we are having problems accessing it on the public machines but hopefully this will soon be resolved. We also have the Times on microfilm from 1914 to present day. Unfortunately at this present time we do not have remote access to our on-line subscription but it is something which we will be looking at in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Clay Posted 10 July , 2006 Share Posted 10 July , 2006 Tony Have a look at this site. They do have the Times Digital Archive, and they seem quite happy to accept online registrations from anyone, anywhere - the legitimacy of this has been queried on the LONDON-L genealogy list, and the answer seems to be - it's OK. Just the ticket, it appears ... Jim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Lund Posted 11 July , 2006 Author Share Posted 11 July , 2006 It works alright. I am now an on-line member of Bedfordshire Library from Yorkshire. Thanks for that, very useful. Tony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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