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Can I Find Which Bits of a Census are Lost?

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 23:37

EUREKA!!!!!!
Suddenly, it has all fallen into place and I understand how the numbering system works and what the National Archive are on about.
I have learned a lot today!!!
Thank you everyone who has been so patient. You are a great bunch!!!
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 20:42

Thanks Elaine
Sorry folks! This is a bit off track but I am interested to know? One off. I promise!
At present I buy credits for Find my Past because I only use it for the NBI, but views have trebled in price recently and I have been wondering about a proper subscription?
Does it have any other obvious advantages over Ancestry?
Carole

Elaine

Elaine Report 19 Sep 2008 18:49

You can search the census using the address on FindmyPast,
It´s not available on Ancestry, apart from the 1881 census.

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 18:21

Elaine
I typed in the reference RG9/3795/15/23 and bingo, up popped the location I wanted .... but I'm not quite sure how you discovered that Hunter's Cottages had that reference?
I think it is an extremely useful thing to know how to do!!!
I am probably being frightfully dim? but in my defence, I have learned a lot in the last 24 hours and I think I am suffering from brain overload, or maybe just plain old fashioned tiredness?
Carole

GlitterBaby

GlitterBaby Report 19 Sep 2008 17:14

Hi Carole,

I nudged the thread up anyway as it is still very useful information.

Good luck with the search.

Maureen

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 17:13

Glitter Baby
Haven't looked yet, with all this advice suddenly flying in at the same time ... but I will and I'll let you know if I find it useful.
Thanks
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 17:10

Hi Elaine
I'll check, in a moment who WAS living at Hunter's Cottage. There are several people that they could have been with at the time of the birth? It would be amazing if I recognised a name. That I should be so lucky??? I hardly dare look. I hadn't realised that you can search by address on the census. Silly me!!!
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 17:02

Thanks a million Jennifer
That has got piece numbers sorted. I'm not likely to forget now ... but as for what I was looking at in the National Archive, I was completely befuddled. Please don't try to explain right now ... maybe it will become clear when I look again, and think it through, in the light of what you have just told me? If I'm still not clear, I may start a new thread and ask specifically about that.
Thanks again
Carole

Elaine

Elaine Report 19 Sep 2008 16:46

It would have been nice if she had been living at Hunters Cottage Jarrow on the 1861 census - but they don't appear to be.
Hunters Cottage appears at the following reference:
RG09/3795/15/23

... so I suppose she could have been anywhere!

GlitterBaby

GlitterBaby Report 19 Sep 2008 16:15

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=855384


This old thread is useful

RutlandBelle

RutlandBelle Report 19 Sep 2008 16:00

Carole, if you look at each census they all have numbers/ piece/folio /page to identify individual pages and for reference

Have you got a sub to Ancestry? If so go to an individual census page say 1871 (RG10) and click on to it. There will be a search box , scroll down till you come to :
For more information about this database, click here.

If you do that it will give you lots more info about the data base. You can do this for each census year.

When you look at transcriptions you will see.at the bottom something like this from 1891:
Source Citation: Class: RG12; Piece: 112; Folio 69; Page 49.

Each census image has this source citation.

Census returns were collected according to registration district. These returns were divided into sub-districts and assigned consecutive piece numbers for reference purposes. The piece numbers begin in London with number one and work roughly south to north, followed by the Welsh districts and then the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. You will find the piece number on a paper strip at the bottom of every image, following the PRO class number. There may be hundreds of pieces within a county.

In addition to the piece number, each page of the returns includes a folio number and/or a page number. The folio number was stamped onto every other page before microfilming and is located in the upper right hand corner of the image. Folio numbering usually starts over at the beginning of each piece. The page number is part of the printed form and is found on every page in the upper right hand corner. The page numbers start over at the beginning of every enumeration district. A full reference number for a record in the 1891 census includes the PRO class number (RG12), the piece number, the folio number, and the page number. Keep in mind that you may have to look at several enumeration districts to find the page you want within a given folio since the page numbers start over with every Enumeration District.

It's also useful to look at the enumeration district as it tells you exactly where the enumerator went and more or less which way he walked dround the district.

Hope this helps Jennifer

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 15:16

Thanks for trying West Country Lass!!!!
I think that we have to assume that they were on these MISSING pages.
Although they had this annoying, and probably illegal, habit of name changing they did appear on every census except this one!
More odd that I can't find Robert Murdoch Montgomery ANYWHERE, either alive or dead, from the moment he was registered??
Another GR member has suggested that he might be in Scotland, with his grandparents and they might have changed his name. After all they were hardly likely to enjoy being reminded daily of who their daughter had run off with!
There is a 'stray' child living with them in 1861 called Christopher M Hislop -Grandson. ... No one to date has been able to account for him. I haven't looked but I am told that there is no birth record. Might He be Robert M Montgomery? If his 'father' discovered that he wasn't his he probably disowned him?
Speculation, but in the event of no further information, as plausible as the next idea.
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 13:40

Yes.
David Montgomery born Tranent 1852
Christina Montgomery born Tranent 1854
Seton Montgomery born Gladsmuir 1857 died of Whooping Cough 1858
Robert Murdoch Montgomery born Gladsmuir 1859 June. Not present in Scottish 1861 census, no death record either.

I had considered that Tranent Jane might have died but there is no record of that either and on David Montgomery's death cert. 1870, she is quoted as his wife, so she was still alive somewhere?

Robert Murdoch was a coke drawer. His father James had been a farmer.

He is Pettigrew on 1871 census.
Carr on 1881 and 1891 ... (but he and Jane married as Murdoch in 1886) Their five children were all Pettigrew/crew then Carr then Murdoch. sometimes spelled Murdock. The two spellings produce different results in census searches! I nearly missed Henry Murdoch because of it.
Henry, the youngest, became Mayor of Durham in 1929. Just think what today's media would make of a Mayor of an important city, with such a chequered past?

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 12:48

Heather and Rutland Belle.
I am totally confused now!!
I couldn't find Merry's thread for a start, so I went to Find My Past.
I thought I had cracked it, but when I scrolled down the list of missing material; they only mentioned a very small section of the 1861 census for Durham as being missing, namely. Quote .. 3735 - Durham - Lanchester - Brancepeth and Hedley Hope. No mention of the whole of RG9 (whatever that is??) and long lists of numbers.
I'm almost ready to give up!
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 12:36

A very kind offer West Country Lass but you will have your work cut out. This couple used more names than they had hot dinners!
Their birth names were Robert Murdoch, or Murdock of Stair, Ayrshire born 1829 and hers was Jane Hislop or Heslop born Tranent, East Lothian 1827.
Jane had been married for ten years to a David Montgomery and they had four children. Sometime after the fourth child was born, in 1859 (Named Robert Murdoch Montgomery ... whose was he?), she fled the Scottish nest!!! David did not die until 1870.
Jane popped up again in Jarrow, where on 3rd Jan 1862 she gave birth to twins, Sarah and Margaret, at Hunter's Cottages, Jarrow.
On their birth certs they are given the name Petticrew; Robert Murdoch's mother's maiden name.
... daughters of Robert Petticrew and Jane Petticrew formerly Heslop. This was totally fictitious as they were not free to marry and in fact did not marry until 1886 (I have the cert).
They continued to live, as Petticrew/Pettigrew/Pitticrew for the next decade
The next child was born in Willington, not too far north of the Tyne. Then they returned to Co. Durham, where they were in 1871, and remained for the rest of their lives ... but they had two more name changes.
I have a considerable amount of evidence that points to Tranent Jane being Jarrow Jane but I feel that the 1861 census, could hold the final piece ... But I can't find her/them!!! I have tried all the name permutations.
She would have been pregnant, so I'm sure she and Robert would have been together?.
Another pair of eyes is always welcome but I am beginning to think that maybe their pages are lost?
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 11:34

Thanks Heather
I will try the Merry option. I must be having a bad day? But I can't make head nor tail of what the National Archive has to offer.
Regards
Carole

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 11:08

Thanks Rutland Belle
I will try the National Archives again. I thought that was what I was doing last night .. but I wasn't getting anywhere, so I must have been doing something wrong??
But as for the piece numbers; I am something of a Newbie to this and I don't actually know what they represent.
Carole

RutlandBelle

RutlandBelle Report 19 Sep 2008 10:58

Known problems with 1861 piece numbers:

Pieces from RG9 where all parishes are missing (we do not have ANY records for these pieces):

145 407 903 1234 4015 4131 4196 4344
219 601 1039 3388 4022 4137 4291 4389


Pieces from RG9 where one or more parishes are missing (we have SOME records for these pieces):

217 690 2211 3913 4027 4143 4173 4211 4265 4295 4330
220 758 2247 3984 4041 4146 4174 4225 4266 4298
229 837 2365 3991 4077 4149 4178 4228 4270 4299
473 863 2625 4010 4078 4154 4184 4231 4272 4301
485 952 3278 4013 4079 4161 4185 4256 4274 4304
499 1047 3652 4014 4132 4163 4187 4261 4276 4309
541 1194 3735 4024 4133 4164 4190 4262 4280 4314
565 1984 3855 4025 4138 4165 4202 4263 4290 4319


Piece number "98" was not used.

Connecting piece numbers and localities:

To identify which parishes or townships are included in a piece, please use The National Archives online catalogue. Search the catalogue by entering the series code and the piece number, e.g. RG 9/217, in the box in the upper left that says "Type reference here."

Alternatively, you can search the catalogue vice-versa (identify which piece number a particular parish or township is part of) by putting a place name in the "Word or phrase" field and "RG 9" in the "Department or Series code" field.

Heather

Heather Report 19 Sep 2008 10:41

Merry put a thread on here years back with all the missing districts. You could look on ancestry as that gives them.

Do a search for Merrys thread. I think it was something like "Is this why your ancestors are missing"

Sometimes find my past throws up people missing on ancestry.

Carole

Carole Report 19 Sep 2008 09:49

I have been searching the 1861 census for ancestors who should be in the Jarrow/South Shields area, or possibly north of the Tyne? I am having no success and nor are other GR members who have been helping me!
It has been suggested, that the difficulty might be due to missing 'piece numbers' and was told to try the National Archives to see if piece numbers had gone missing from the area?
Apart from the fact that I am unsure what piece numbers are; I am also having problems with the National Archives site. .. I must be doing something wrong?
Can anybody please explain exactly what I am looking for and how to find it??
My thanks in advance.
Carole