200 reader-cousins

[Jeremy Wilkes]

I have been largely stalled in my research by library closures, and am preparing long lists of what to look up when they, and record offices, reopen. One of these lists has been running for about ten months. In particular I cannot continue my trawling of Scottish parish registers and census returns, which I started only last year (I managed to identify my paternal grandfather during the first lockdown, after about fifty years of research). I suppose that I could press ahead with looking for more relations in the Scottish 1881 census transcription, but I do not really want to enter them until I have seen facsimiles of the returns. Meanwhile, I read that 200 other readers are my cousins, so I have been looking through my Lost Cousins contact lists. Four, from 2017 to 2020, are marked "Wait for reply." Of the two marked "Make contact" one is said to be unrelated and the other's connection is the second husband of a third cousin-in-law from whom I am three times removed; I shall be pleased to tell J D what I know if he or she makes contact with me, but I do not intend to put much effort into pursuing that link. That leaves four, rather than two hundred, "Cousins" with whom contact has been established, 36 "Relatives", some of whom are cousins, and two others. Will my other cousins please speak up, or at least click! I promise to respond.

 

[peter]

Will my other cousins please speak up, or at least click! I promise to respond.

Whilst there might be one or two yet-to-be-discovered cousins on the forum, the chances are that almost all of your cousins are amongst the 97% of members who either haven't qualified for the forum, or haven't taken up the invitation. Hopefully the array of prizes on offer in my competition will encourage some of the 97% to add to their My Ancestors page.

 

[At home in NZ]

Will my other cousins please speak up, or at least click! I promise to respond.

I think this is meant to be a plea to those who are a match and have yet to reply to Jeremy. I have been known to get wrong end of stick tho'

 

[peter]

I think this is meant to be a plea to those who are a match and have yet to reply to Jeremy.

I would sincerely hope that there are no forum members who would fail to respond to Jeremy - or any other member.

 

[At home in NZ]

I would sincerely hope that there are no forum members who would fail to respond to Jeremy - or any other member.

Sorry to dash your hopes, I have two matches with the same LC member, I made contact for the first one on 29 Dec 2019 and for the second one on 2 Jan 2021 but have no reply to either of my messages.

I have another match, a connection by marriage. I asked the contact if they wanted to take it any further but I didn't get the courtesy of a 'no', just silence. I can live with that seeing as it's a connection by marriage.

 

[peter]

Sorry to dash your hopes, I have two matches with the same LC member, I made contact for the first one on 29 Dec 2019 and for the second one on 2 Jan 2021 but have no reply to either of my messages.

I have another match, a connection by marriage. I asked the contact if they wanted to take it any further but I didn't get the courtesy of a 'no', just silence. I can live with that seeing as it's a connection by marriage.

How do you know that the people who haven't responded are members of the forum? As I mentioned in my reply to Jeremy, only 3% of the readers of my newsletter are. And most of the people who don't respond after I've followed up aren't even readers of the newsletter, either because they're dead or because their email address has stopped working.

 

[At home in NZ]

How do you know that the people who haven't responded are members of the forum?

I don't and I didn't mean to infer that they are. I was merely pointing out that I have matches with people who I have contacted and have not had a response.

 

[peter]

I don't and I didn't mean to infer that they are. I was merely pointing out that I have matches with people who I have contacted and have not had a response.

I'd be surprised if you didn't - I said recently that the overall response rate for cousins is only around 90%. (Though this compares extremely favourably with Ancestry, who don't provide any form of follow up.)

The point I was making is that people who don't respond are very unlikely to be members of this forum, both statistically and because forum members are amongst the most experienced family historians and the most enthusiastic users of the LostCousins site.

 

[jorghes]

I have been largely stalled in my research by library closures, and am preparing long lists of what to look up when they, and record offices, reopen. One of these lists has been running for about ten months. In particular I cannot continue my trawling of Scottish parish registers and census returns, which I started only last year (I managed to identify my paternal grandfather during the first lockdown, after about fifty years of research). I suppose that I could press ahead with looking for more relations in the Scottish 1881 census transcription, but I do not really want to enter them until I have seen facsimiles of the returns. Meanwhile, I read that 200 other readers are my cousins, so I have been looking through my Lost Cousins contact lists. Four, from 2017 to 2020, are marked "Wait for reply." Of the two marked "Make contact" one is said to be unrelated and the other's connection is the second husband of a third cousin-in-law from whom I am three times removed; I shall be pleased to tell J D what I know if he or she makes contact with me, but I do not intend to put much effort into pursuing that link. That leaves four, rather than two hundred, "Cousins" with whom contact has been established, 36 "Relatives", some of whom are cousins, and two others. Will my other cousins please speak up, or at least click! I promise to respond.

Just as a general question - are you utilising ScotlandsPeople in your trawling of parish registers and census returns? You can get a lot out of the searches, even if you don't paid to view the images.

 

[Jeremy Wilkes]

I have used Scotlands People, but a site requiring separate payment for each view is not really suited to trawling. The index has limitations, especially with mothers' names shown only for some deaths, and not for births or baptisms. Add to that the Celtic use of a relatively small number of patronymic-style surnames, often making more detail necessary to ensure that one has the correct McPerson. Family Search has advantages, if one can get to an appropriate library, which I managed for a few weeks in the autumn. I hope to resume eventually!

 

[peter]

Family Search has advantages, if one can get to an appropriate library

What Scottish records do FamilySearch have that aren't available online?

 

[Jeremy Wilkes]

I do not know off-hand, as all those that I have consulted so far, facsimiles of parish registers and census returns, have been digitised. These are available however only at family history centres and affiliated libraries, so at present they are largely or wholly unavailable. The virus involved does not attack computers, but it stops us from using them in libraries!