Genealogy Chat

Has anyone found anything useful on here? I've been looking for 5 families in Surrey/London and can't find anything conclusive. When searching for all Sarahs born in Peckham I got so many with ... as the surname, I tried a search for ... as surname and I got:-, Your search criteria has returned 571895 results. Please redefine your search. This is unbelievable! No wonder I can't find anything. I think I've just wasted a fiver. GRRRRR

I think it's easier if you have an uncommon surname or if you can give an approximate age. I found 2 ancestor by looking on the off chance that they were further north than they should have been (they were from kent but I found them in london) and there were 2 others with the sme name next door so I have 2 possable relatives to identify.

I'm not even going to bother. I'm going to wait until it is on Ancestry. I can search all day then without it costing me any extra money. Margaret

Maybe I've just been lucky, but have found both my Surrey and Kent families on there no trouble at all. Found it alot easier to use than Ancestory too.

I've had some success but some I've still not been able to locate despite knowing that they have to be there. Like Margaret I'm going to wait till its on Ancestry and you can search properly. Having to pay 3 units to see the household transcription for one person when there might be several possibles is an expensive way of searching! Lou

Peter, Have you tried the advanced search? If you don't want to use credits you can try the following: If you conduct your search and narrow it down by district, you can mouse over where it says 'View' you can figure out the family groupings from the line number and the number after UIR, sort of like the Census Decoder and not use credits. Crista

I like the address search facility that's not on ancestry. Because I knew the address to look for, I was able to find my James(baby) & Rebecca MYERS(mother) 'hiding in disguise' as James & Rebecca MORS! Now, if I could just work out what Dad was disguised as and where he was....! Sue (in NZ)

Yes, I did find the family that I wanted straight away. As I hadn't had an address for them I was a bit stuck when I went to look at the FRC as there was too much to look through. This transcript was therefore really useful. Having said that, there are loads of errors on it. Luckily I was only 'filling the gap' between all the other censuses which I already had. If I had relied on their data for the place of birth I would have gone right off in the wrong direction. It bore no resemblance to anything.

Angela - if you look at the 'household transcript' there is a button you can click on to correct transcript, and when I did it for some of my rellies who were mistranscribed they refunded the 3 credits I had paid to look at the household transcript.

Yes, I spent a tenner on there and got only one good result. I looked for ages for one particular person, opening all the possibles and paying out credits. I contacted 1837 online and they said do an address search, which I did - it came up zilch again. I emailed them saying the address wasnt on there - they mailed back saying it was, so I asked them to look it up for me. I then got an email saying, it appears to be missing. I suppose I should have asked for a ton of credits back really.

Does anyone know how you can save the census image on 1837 online as a JPEG (as you do on Ancestry) rather than a DjVu file? I may have missed something obvious here!

Thanks for the tips on squeezing the free bits out, I will give it a go later. The thing that concerned me was the 1/2 millon people transcribed without a surname. Even if you look at the image, the quality is appauling. I can't even make out the bits that have been transcribed from it!

Peter Like I said, with the mistakes in transcription that have been noticed already, and its in its infancy, I will wait for Ancestry. After all the people on there arent going anywhere. I know Ancestry has its problems with transcriptions but at least you dont see your credits counting down all the time. Margaret

I had some credits and had a look for a g-great uncle and found him pretty easily - but then his surname is CHRISTMAS! I also had an idea where he should be because he had a couple of stints with the Surrey Police, which recorded 'last residence' and the second one was in April 1861! I know more about that g-great uncle than I do about my g-grandfather. Christine

Hi Bernice The name I am looking for is Sarah Drake who would have been 10 and living with her parents Henry and Charlotte. I would like to find any siblings. Henry was born in Birchington, Kent and Charlotte in Deal, Kent. I don't know where they married, but Sarah was born in Rotherhithe. I have listed all relevant Drakes, but there is no Sarah, Henry and Charlotte listed in the same district. I assumed a mis-transcription, so I listed all Sarahs born in Rotherhithe. It was then that I noticed the large number transcribed without a surname. Considering that there are only 4 counties transcribed, it is quite a high percentage.

I think I will have a go at getting the mistakes corrected and see if I can get some credits back. I see that they say they have some more counties 'coming soon' including Yorkshire and Lancashire.

Hello Peter If you have family events in the Medway area, then there are a couple of sites you should have in your Favourites (if not already there!): http://extranet3.kent.gov.uk/sp/rois/home.html http://cityark.medway.gov.uk/ The latter one isn't very clearly laid out, but is well worth persisting with. You might find the images of the church registers: actual ancestral signatures for weddings! Christine

A mate of mine said in an email that the 1861 census on 1837 is Fully Searchable though. I dont know if that is quite true. They estimate that inbetween 5 to 10% of the entire 1861 census is missing, so that accounts for roughly 1 million people, and some of my London ancestors fall into that category as I know the address but the returns for that address are missing, but it would of just told me stuff I knew alreadyt from later censi and baptism and BMD records etc.

I have ancestors in central London in 1861. I know they are there because some years ago I paid a researcher to look for them I have a print out from the 1861 census. I cannot find them on the 1837 version. Explain that!! Other than very poor transcription Margaret

I think we should all send a complaint to 1837 saying that their blurb is misleading and we have wasted money searching for ancestors we know exist and addresses we know existed but have brought up zero results. Perhaps they will give us some credits in compensation. Update, my email is on its way to them!