Getting the most out of Ancestry

Paul King - 16th  April 2008 - speaking at the BerksFHS Computer Branch, Woodley
Summary provided by Peter Beaven

There are several ways to get access to data on Ancestry, which is available in a UK edition or a worldwide version (at much greater cost). If you want the convenience of a connection at home, this costs £80 for an annual subscription (UK); monthly rates are 50% more at £10. Alternative methods of access include purchasing vouchers; free 2 week trial (but make sure you cancel before it is over as you will be charged); purchase of Family tree Maker includes a 3 month trial; or visit Kew where the census data is free

The full Library edition is available at the BerksFHS HQ in Reading and members may use this at £1/hour, with the advantage that advice and assistance is available. Recently most of the local libraries have also started to test Ancestry access, starting with Newbury, Slough, Bracknell, Windsor & Wokingham: it is available on most branches of these libraries.

Reading is still without access - except at BFHS HQ. Library access is free to members but limited to a daily session. The Library version has some restrictions: it can not accept corrections or access the Family Trees. However Paul said he does not use this latter facility as there is no method of retrieving the data ie download of gedcom. In addition in a public library you can not download system files and so on first attempt to view an image you are asked to download an updated viewer; this has to be rejected before an image can be seen. The BFHS site has the new viewer.

There are many areas on Ancestry but this talk featured the BMD data and the censuses. Ancestry is the only source at present of all available UK census, ie 1841-1901. A brief mention was made of other features such as ‘What's new at Ancestry’ and the link to ‘View Your Recent Activity’.

BMD indexes Ancestry provides a link to its page ‘England & Wales Birth Marriage and Death Indexes 1837-2005' which has 3 sections. The first is ‘Complete BMD Index ranges & Images 1837-1983'; the second ‘Partial FreeBMD Indexes & Images 1837-1983' and last ‘Complete BMD Indexes 1984-2005'.

The second option is the only section that does not need any sort of subscription and provides an alternative method of searching the FreeBMD data although it will not be the latest transcriptions and does not have ancillary information such as graphs showing the level of transcription for each quarter. The FreeBMD search engine allows you to search marriages with both people specified, which reduces the number of results to check.

For any search you first choose the Birth, Marriage or Death section. The search page is similar for all sections where you can specify a name year and quarter. The results from the first section (Complete...) will list pages that might contain the record being searched. This is based on the first and last name on the page. However this can cause problems for instance where a hand written addition at the end of a page is taken to be the last name of the sequence. Having identified a possible page this can be downloaded.

Census Ancestry allows you to have several sessions open at the same time and so it is possible to have ‘windows’ onto several censuses. This is possible with modern tabbed browsers or by opening separate windows. Iexplorer 7 has now caught up with other browsers - and should be installed whatever you use as it includes advanced security measures.

As a demonstration of how census data can be explored, Paul showed how to find the occupants of a hotel on the Isle of Wight. An old map showed that it existed in the 1890s near to a Redoubt. Opening the page for the 1901 census and scrolling to the bottom allows you to select a county, Hampshire and then a parish, Freshwater. There are 5 Districts here but by looking at the descriptions of the areas it is possible to choose the likely one - the one mentioning the Redoubt. By choosing this District and scrolling through the pages the hotel was found with list of servants and boarders.

The names included Elizabeth Waterhouse and also a servant Ferris. By finding these names in an earlier census it was possible to show that they were together. It also found that Elizabeth’s husband was Albert Waterhouse, occupation architect - his buildings well represented in Reading

As a demonstration of transcription problems Paul tried to find James Partridge born 1875 in Droitwich. An Exact Search (+/- 2 years) of the 1901 census did not find him, nor did Non-Exact. Using a wild search ‘Part*’ produced a range of names and the fourth on the list was ‘James Partida’ born in ‘Broitende’. This proved to be the elusive record.

Finally Paul demonstrated how he uses a spreadsheet to record his progress in locating individuals across the 7 censuses. In this way it is easier to note where the next searches are needed.

updated 17 May 2008