TheGenealogist news

A useful new field has been added to results of TheGenealogist’s online search of census transcript indexes. Until recently users didn’t see the original birth place data in the search results, but only a birth county- which wasn’t too helpful in a large county like Yorkshire or Lancashire.

Regular users will realise that, of all the columns on the census page, this one probably holds more mistakes and misinformation than any other part of the form. Places may have been reported incorrectly in the first place (my ancestor gave details of where he lived in the previous census); the enumerator may have mis-transcribed the information from the household return, or misheard what he was told when filling out the form for an illiterate householder; and the wrong county was often attached to a place by enumerators with a poor grasp of geography. Never mind all the strange spellings that appear!

Because of this, TheGenealogist transcript search form uses only the county where born. This information has been filtered and cleaned up to make searching more accurate and consistent. Where the search results previously only showed this county field, it now provides the full transcription as it was entered on the form. So you can make your own judgement on the accuracy of the entry.

Since New Year, many of the company’s online census transcription indexes have had online images linked to them and over 20 counties now have images available for one or more of the years 1841-1861.

Most of the indexes and transcripts now have a button at the bottom of the results page to open a printer-friendly version of the results list. This is a feature requested by users and is also helpful for those who are partially-sighted, as it is a simple, text-only, black-on-white page.

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