Looking for soldiers on the 1901 census.

[Duncan]

Whenever I look up a soldier on the 1901 census and he's not listed I always check this site:

www.freebmd.org.uk

And surprise surprise I find them. Why is that? Why is the search facility on the 1901 site so unreliable? Take this man, Cyril Brickenden born 1900 in Canterbury, according to both his service records and www.freebmd.org.uk. Yet not a site of him on 1901, nor any Brickenden's in Canterbury (apart from one 57 year old man).

That's just a recent example, there's been loads in the past, people aged between 1 and 10 around 1901 and born in a specific location, yet nothing remotely matching them on 1901.

Is there some problems with the 1901 site?

Duncan.

[HarryBettsMCDCM]

I expect a lot of Serving soldiers in 1901 were sunning themselves in the Veldt of Zuid Afrika,being shot at by Bad Tempered Dutchmen!!!

[Jim Clay]

Duncan

Found him on ancestry as BRICKARDEN, then looked for family members on the Nat Archive site and found him as BRICKENDER.

You've gotta be devious to figure out mis-transcriptions sometimes!

Haven't looked at the original record, so don't know how dodgy the enumeratpr's handwriting was ...

Cheers,

Jim

[Guest geoff501]

Whenever I look up a soldier on the 1901 census and he's not listed I always check this site:

www.freebmd.org.uk

And surprise surprise I find them. Why is that? Why is the search facility on the 1901 site so unreliable? Take this man, Cyril Brickenden born 1900 in Canterbury, according to both his service records and www.freebmd.org.uk. Yet not a site of him on 1901, nor any Brickenden's in Canterbury (apart from one 57 year old man).

That's just a recent example, there's been loads in the past, people aged between 1 and 10 around 1901 and born in a specific location, yet nothing remotely matching them on 1901.

Is there some problems with the 1901 site?

Duncan.

It can be a pain, but remember an index has beed created from the enumerator's scribble and will contain

errors in names and places.

I entered surname: Bick*, Age: 0, place keyword: Kent - no result.

Then tried surname: Brick*, rest as above - found two results

one being Cyril B. L. BRICKENDER Age 6m, born Canterbury, Kent, CP Canterbury St Paul.

Actually the extended search can be quite powerful, if you bear in mind likely errors and use wildcards where necessary.

[Duncan]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll do those extended searches in future.

Cheers,

Duncan

[gregs_yorkley]

Hi Duncan,

Being a regular user of census web sites (my other life is tracing Family Trees), I can assure you that the quality of the census index is reliant on the person who has transcribed it!

I can think of two places you might be looking at 1901, and if it is the government site, this was (eventually) transcribed by a company on the Indian sub-continent (but don't get me started on where all our IT jobs are going!), having at first been started by people detained at her majesty's pleasure

Now having been born and bred in England I can sometimes look at an ennumerators page in the census and not make head nor tail of the writing, even when I know what I am looking for. So I can only assume that someone whose first language is not English would have absolutely no chance.

However, that said I too have lost people in 1901 and agree with the previous poster, in that I've come to the assumption they too were in South Africa.

If you ever need a hand with the census please feel free to give me a shout - as I said I've got a number of years experience with it, and have access to all the England and Wales ones from 1841 - 1901.

Just by way of interest FreeBMD is actually transcribed by volunteers, and they are the first to say that their indexes are not complete.

Cheers

Angela

[Guest geoff501]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll do those extended searches in future.

Cheers,

Duncan

Don't put too much data in - less is better (unless you get many hits). If it does not work - try something different!