Genealogy Chat

Just been on the new BMD records on Ancestry. Can't stop laughing! How on earth can you have B surnames on the same page as S? All the surnames beginning Sa they have down as Su. God help us all, it's bad enough trying to track rellies on the census, now we have all this gobbledigook to plough through. Carole xx

Its optional, you dont have to..... finding some is better than none isnt it? people (not just you by a long way, i dont mean that) seem to be very critical for something that is only just off the ground

I havent larfed Carole! I have sent a whinging email to them though. Of course its much better trawling for free than paying!

It's not as daft as it seems. When you look at the pages concerned the first name is not always very clear and could be mistranscribed, this way you just miss these pages out when you you view. Don't knock it though this is an invaluable source of information.

If there are 2 or 3 for a quarter it is only because the first or last name in it has been misread. the proper one should be there as well and really quite easy to spot. at least it won't cost anything to have a look at it, just a bit more time. I think the pros vastly outweigh the cons and we can be a bit quick to criticise a new and very welcome addition to the site. Kat (who keeps finding missing rellies. :))

I didn't mean to be nasty lol. I've just had a frustrating morning paying to view 1837 online, my rellie doesnt appear to have been born by the way, then I switched to ancestry and it cheered me up no end, what a larf! Actually my poodles quite good at typing, I'm thinking about loaning her to ancestry! Carole xx

Haven't found many mistakes on there myself. The ones I have found have been due to names being badly printed. If the name that you want doesn't appear try typing in something similar and maybe going on to the next page. Not too difficult. Maggy

I found what I wanted to find so obviously I think its great. June xx

Its something for nothing isnt it? You dont have to subscribe to get the indexes. Try doing it the hard way, slogging your way through fiche indexes at a library. Ancestry is brilliant Margaret

I can never understand it when people moan that it costs a lot, can you. Its just over a quid a week! What other hobby would cost just that. Just driving or getting to a local records office would cost at least a fiver for a day.

I live on the oustkirts of london so am quite lucky when it comes to access to archives etc. Even so - to spend a day searching at the FRC it would cost me minimum of £6.00 for a daily travelcard plus any additional costs for getting copies of the census pages I want (and then refreshments and whatever else I needed to see my throug ha full day). The fact that there is no name indexes only street indexes would mean to achieve the same amount as i can do in say an hour on ancestry woudl proably take me a day at teh FRC. So even without the GRO indexes it was a bargain. Now with the added bonus I can't see how anyone can have cause to complain at spending 69.95 per year for use of their facilities when that would only get me 11 and a bit days of research in London (goodness knows how much if you had to travel farther than zone 6 to get there) So there's a few teething problems - so what? If they'd not added it you'd have nothing to moan about so would everyone rather they left it off for a glitch free life? I can't fault ancestry - when you consider the sheer volume of pages of information you can look at from home it's an amazing service. Zoe

Yes I know we all larf or cry about some of the mistranscribed entries but when you think how many MILLIONS of names (often totally alien to the people transcribing them) its amazing we dont have more missing people than we do. And thats half the fun isnt it, finding someone after a long haul of searching.

Yes I agree their records aren't perfect, however you can use the navigation buttons on the image screen to go backwards & forwards through the records. The excellent thing is that it's FREE! But for how long - who knows. Just make the most of it whilst it lasts.

My gripe is that some pages are missing - I'm looking for a marriage, working back from 1945 and so far have found several pages which should have the name missing. I tried getting around the bad indexing by searching for similar names but when I click onto the page where it should be using the next button it skips a page. Gwynne

Carol dont moan;;; I havnt been born or married twice lol but at least you can have good nosy round for anyothers you have missing ;; poor me sob sob glad Im not in the deaths anyway;; lol Babs

I've emailed ancestry about all the missing pages I've (not) found. I hope they add them quickly - no point in searching further when what you want could be on a missing page. Gwynne

Well, I am trying to laugh, Carole, but it's not coming easily. I just went looking for a birth in 1943. I know the name and am only searching that year. Ancestry offered me 13 possible pages. I have looked at all of them. Only 2 cover the surname that I am looking for. I don't mean that it is rare and does not crop up - I mean that only 2 cover that range of the alphabet. And using the arrows to look at page before and page after does not work either as I am getting pages with RA.......... names coming immediately after pages with FE........ names, etc etc. I can't work out any logic to it. I have tried 3 totally different searches and have had the same result with all of them. Now, I accept that this is a bonus as it is included in our subscription (we hope!), but Ancestry are putting this forward as a reason to join the site. If I did my job to this standard, I would not last a week. I can forgive a few mistakes, but please don't tell me I have just 'happened' upon the only mistakes in the indexing. Personally, I think it is a pretty poor show. Tina

If you use the 'browse' facility rather than the 'search' one, don't you get all the pages for names starting with a particular letter? So that should prove whether or not a page is missing or just mis-indexed. If you get say 50 pages for a particular letter, it may take a few goes to get the right one but you should get there in the end... unless the pages are really missing rather than mis-indexed. Kate.

Hi Kate, There are pages missing on the browse feature as well - for example Sep Q 1927 page 196 just isn't there. Gwynne

Ann Because of the transcription errors, you have to 'help' Ancestry. Try choosing other names that begin with Le to search, e.g Lee, Leeds and see if you get near the page with that. Otherwise just try searching for any name begining with an L and then wade though the pages til you get to the Le section.