Research tips needed Please !

[Zoemcdougall]

When searching for a person who may have 2 different surnames, I.e Williams Or Jones etc, when entering the criteria, would I imput the names of both parents or one,
for example in the case of for looking for Florence Rose, as we know she is listed on the 1881 census as being Rose Jones, but possibly on the 1891 census down as Florence Williams, on the birth cert Florence Rose Jones. (Her Mother's maiden Williams) as I am trying to search for her in later census records, and not sure how to go about searching this.

We know her Sister Sarah Jane was a Williams,
Could the Reason for the change of surname for Florence from Jones to Williams be that Henry went to prison,

if what my Uncle told father was true (About their possible other sibling Edward's father, going to prison)

Hope this makes sense wasn't sure how to word it !!!

[Olde Crone]

I think you just have to grit your teeth and search systematically, using all combinations of the possible names, one at a time. Tedious.

As Jones is SUCH a common name, I wouldn't have thought any change was because someone of that name went to prison.

OC

[kiterunner]

You can put both first names and both surnames in on an ancestry search but make sure to untick the "Exact matches only" box. So, then you can put Florence Rose in for first name and Williams Jones in for surname, birth year 1880, birth country England, birth county Northamptonshire, click the search button and the first match that comes up is the correct birth registration, which shows that it works.

That is how to do it using the "old search" but it is much the same with the "new search" - untick the box that says "match all terms exactly" and put all the names in, plus choose the "birth" event and enter 1880 for the year and Northampton, Northamptonshire, England for the location.

Then if you want to concentrate on censuses, click Census & Electoral Rolls where it says "Narrow your search", and then you can choose which census you want. Though when you pick the 1891 census, the entry we think is her is 96 on the list of matches! I guess that is because her birthplace is shown as "unknown".

Also try swopping the order of the names around and redo the search because I think that will shuffle the order of the matches you get, e.g. try Rose Florence instead of Florence Rose, Jones Williams instead of Williams Jones.

[kiterunner]

We know her Sister Sarah Jane was a Williams,
Could the Reason for the change of surname for Florence from Jones to Williams be that Henry went to prison,



It could just be that when she went into the workhouse, for whatever reason that was, the officials found out that her parents weren't married and insisted that this meant that Jones wasn't her real surname and she had to be a Williams because that was her mother's correct surname. Or it could be that Henry and Hannah had split up and Hannah had changed her surname back to Williams and so she was also using that surname for her children.

[Merry]

I might do literally hundreds of varied searches if I can't find someone on a census.

I think it can be helpful to think of what you won't see if you add to much data for your search (if you are doing exact matches).

eg if you type Rose in the forename box you won't get results including Rosie bit you will if you type Ros*. Flo* will find you Florence and Florance and Florrie. Vowels are more commonly mistranscribed than consonants so you light try J?nes for Jones etc. The same goes for placenames. You need to include enough letters to save yourself ploughing through a lot of records that are not what you need, but not so many that you don't see the mis-spelled records! eg N*hampton will find Northhampton and N'hampton but *hampton will also show you Southampton and Wolverhampton! Bear in mind that initial letters of words sometimes get mistranscribed, esp St and H getting mistranscribed for each other, or R and K or P and R.

If you add a parent forename you won't find the person if they are not with their parent or if they are lodgers in a household and therefore listed as lodger/boarder as their relationship to the head of house.

If you are not sure how a place of birth such as Northampton might have been recorded (in the County box or in the Parish box??) then put it in the Keywords box instead.

I could write a book about searching on Ancestry, so I'll stop there! lol

Could the Reason for the change of surname for Florence from Jones to Williams be that Henry went to prison

I think that's doubtful. If she was in the workhouse it's likely just the name that was given when she arrived for whatever reason (EDIT such as the suggestions Kate has made in the previous post). It could also be that they are different people! Have you searched the death registrations thoroughly?

[Zoemcdougall]

Thankyou Kate, Merry & OC for your replies will look for her with all the different ways you have all suggested.

Merry I haven't looked that closely to looking for a death record yet, as with the census searches wasn't sure what surname & criteria I should imput. Obviously she was born in Northampton, Would I assume that she died in Northampton too. ?

[kiterunner]

She could have died anywhere - obviously if we found a likely death registration in Northampton it would be worth getting the certficate to check whether it was her, but there may be quite a few possibles in other counties. Also there are so many possible names that her death could have been registered under.

[Zoemcdougall]

Thankyou Kate, would you say my first step should be trying to locate her on other census records, the. Look for a death record, but as you it may be difficult as I don't want name she would have been registered under or which county it could, other Northampton, which other counties to try.

[Merry]

If you have decided that is her in the NH workhouse, she might have moved and got married by 1901 which would make her almost (??!!) impossible to trace.

[Zoemcdougall]

Thankyou Merry.

[Merry]

Thankyou Merry.

lol!! Sorry :o:d

[kiterunner]

I have spent quite a while looking for her and never found anything particularly likely.

[Merry]

Same here.

[Uncle John]

I know, from trying to find someone's admission to Northampton Workhouse, that the records at the CRO don't start until after about 1901.