Missing entries - GRO Online Index

[At home in NZ]

I'm talking pre-1911.

You don't need a subscription to search at Findmypast, you only need a subscription to view transcripts and images. And £79.99 for the Starter subscription is an awful lot of money - I wouldn't advise any LostCousins member to buy a Starter subscription.

That's a fallacy - it has nothing to do with exchange rates, but I wouldn't expect the press to understand that. If you've spent thousands of dollars travelling to the other side of world then (a) you're probably more affluent than most, and (b) if you were prepared to spend that much money on a holiday your budget for holiday expenditure is likely to be higher.

Japanese tourists are amongst the biggest spenders, but there are 77 yen to each NZ dollar.

Who said the press said that? it could have been somebody from the tourism industry for all you know, I was merely citing an example of why people hesitate to spend.
I honestly don't care how many yen there are to the dollar, the fact is that Japanese tourists numbers have gone down as this table shows. Way back in the late 1980's, early 1990's Japanese were coming here to get married and were only here for short periods, obviously they spent up large then. Please don't argue with that, my daughter was working in inbound Japanese tourism at that time and I know because she used to tell me about it.

I don't know if you have travelled extensively but we, like the average joe blow Kiwi, look for the cheapest flights. We do not take part in expensive activities as we travel to see people and places.

Not all tourists are affluent. that's a fallacy.

 

[peter]

Who said the press said that?

You did.

I honestly don't care how many yen there are to the dollar, the fact is that Japanese tourists numbers have gone down as this table shows. Way back in the late 1980's, early 1990's Japanese were coming here to get married and were only here for short periods, obviously they spent up large then. Please don't argue with that, my daughter was working in inbound Japanese tourism at that time and I know because she used to tell me about it.

I wasn't thinking of Japanese visitors to New Zealand - it never crossed my mind. I was thinking of the ones I've seen in England and the US, especially Hawaii.

I don't know if you have travelled extensively but we, like the average joe blow Kiwi, look for the cheapest flights. We do not take part in expensive activities as we travel to see people and places.

Yes, I travelled a lot in the past, and as you will know I am very cost-conscious. Depending on the facilities in the room we would take an electric kettle, small electric hob, and even a small fridge if there wasn't one provided.

Not all tourists are affluent. that's a fallacy.

I never said they were. What I actually said was that people who travel to the other side of the world on holiday are probably more affluent than most. I've never been to the Antipodes.

 

[At home in NZ]

And £79.99 for the Starter subscription is an awful lot of money - I wouldn't advise any LostCousins member to buy a Starter subscription.

Hopefully you wouldn't advise anybody to pay the gobsmacking amount of £159.99 for the Pro version either. FMP is far more expensive than Ancestry and for the most part Ancestry is sufficient for my needs.

 

[At home in NZ]

Depending on the facilities in the room we would take an electric kettle, small electric hob, and even a small fridge if there wasn't one provided.

They wouldn't let me on the plane with that lot.

 

[peter]

Hopefully you wouldn't advise anybody to pay the gobsmacking amount of £159.99 for the Pro version either. FMP is far more expensive than Ancestry and for the most part Ancestry is sufficient for my needs.

Not sure where you are getting your figures - Findmypast is actually cheaper than Ancestry (for the equivalent subscriptions at their respective UK sites). Also Findmypast automatically give 15% loyalty discount for renewals - Ancestry do not reward loyalty.

It's also worth remembering that the cost of Findmypast's top subscription is the same as in 2009 even though they've added parish records, newspapers, the 1939 Register, and world records since then.

They wouldn't let me on the plane with that lot.

Why not?

 

[Mitch_in_Notts]

Not sure where you are getting your figures - Findmypast is actually cheaper than Ancestry (for the equivalent subscriptions at their respective UK sites). Also Findmypast automatically give 15% loyalty discount for renewals - Ancestry do not reward loyalty.

It's also worth remembering that the cost of Findmypast's top subscription is the same as in 2009 even though they've added parish records, newspapers, the 1939 Register, and world records since then.

Why not?

I should image he is getting them from Findmypast subscription page:
£79.99 starter, £119.99 plus, £159.99 pro.
Ancestry worldwide is £179.99 a year, but I only pay £89.99, as I don't automatically renew each year and half price offers always seem available with Ancestry.
I have not found any half price offers with such a saving on findmypast.

 

[peter]

I should image he is getting them from Findmypast subscription page:
£79.99 starter, £119.99 plus, £159.99 pro.
Ancestry worldwide is £179.99 a year

Exactly the point I was making.

I only pay £89.99, as I don't automatically renew each year and half price offers always seem available with Ancestry

I did say that whereas Findmypast offer an automatic Loyalty Discount, Ancestry don't reward loyalty.

 

[Helen7]

I did say that whereas Findmypast offer an automatic Loyalty Discount, Ancestry don't reward loyalty.

True, Ancestry reward disloyalty. As Mitch_in_Notts points out, Ancestry offer a half price subscription each year if you don't renew - and in my experience the offer appears as soon as your previous subscription expires.

 

[At home in NZ]

I should image he is getting them from Findmypast subscription page:
£79.99 starter, £119.99 plus, £159.99 pro.
Ancestry worldwide is £179.99 a year, but I only pay £89.99, as I don't automatically renew each year and half price offers always seem available with Ancestry.
I have not found any half price offers with such a saving on findmypast.

Quite correct Mitch BUT I'm a female.
I also only pay £89.99 for Ancestry. Which, in my frugal mind is still quite a lot of money when converted to NZD.

 

[peter]

The key point is that searching at Findmypast is free, so whether you have a subscription or not, it's a good place to start searching for pre-1911 births to a particular couple. For example, if I search for the children of my great-grandfather John Wells and his wives, two sisters whose maiden name was Pepperell, all 12 of them are listed in the search results:



You can view those results whether you have a subscription or not.

 

[Helen7]

Has anyone noticed that one of the fuzzy matching options has disappeared from the GRO birth and death index searches?

I don't miss this, as I never found the other options particularly useful.

However, what I am missing now is the option to specify 'Age at Death' in the Death index search. I used that a lot to filter out people of the wrong age with common surnames, to avoid getting a very long list of hits. You still see the age at death shown after a search, but it no longer offers this as a filter to carry out the search - that box has disappeared. Have others noticed this, or is it just me?

 

[Mitch_in_Notts]

Quite correct Mitch BUT I'm a female.
I also only pay £89.99 for Ancestry. Which, in my frugal mind is still quite a lot of money when converted to NZD.

Apologies. But it least it is good to know I DO NOT get everything right

 

[peter]

However, what I am missing now is the option to specify 'Age at Death' in the Death index search. I used that a lot to filter out people of the wrong age with common surnames, to avoid getting a very long list of hits. You still see the age at death shown after a search, but it no longer offers this as a filter to carry out the search - that box has disappeared. Have others noticed this, or is it just me?

I think it's probably good news, in that it seems to confirm my previous assumption that they are planning to improve the search. The age at death search was always of limited value and unnecessarily complicated - year of birth would be far more useful, so lets hope that's what they are planning.

 

[Helen7]

year of birth would be far more useful, so lets hope that's what they are planning.

Yes, I agree that would be better.

 

[kirkstall]

Back on topic....
Exactly what checking did GRO do before putting their data online? I have found two examples where they have made up the District of North Burley instead of North Bierley. Interestingly they have also transcribed the surname incorrectly, Reod instead of Reid. Did they convert these records on a Friday afternoon?

 

[peter]

Back on topic....
Exactly what checking did GRO do before putting their data online? I have found two examples where they have made up the District of North Burley instead of North Bierley. Interestingly they have also transcribed the surname incorrectly, Reod instead of Reid. Did they convert these records on a Friday afternoon?

I doubt they did any checking - it would have been a waste of money (and it would have been our money). After all, people had been ordering copy certificates for almost 180 years using the quarterly indexes, so the new indexes were just a bonus.

But do you know for a fact that these register entries have been wrongly transcribed, ie do you have copies, or is it merely an assumption? The fact that you've found two entries with the same misspelling makes me wonder whether it's the register that is incorrect - bear in mind that Bierley is just south of Bradford, and Burley is about 10 miles to the north of Bradford so plenty of scope for confusion. I've seen similar errors in the censuses.

 

[pjd]

Burley (in Wharfedale) is not a registration district but North Bierley definitely is:

• Created : 1.1.1892
• Abolished : 1.1.1939 (to become part of Bradford, Keighley, Wharfedale, Spen Valley, and Leeds South registration districts)
• Sub-districts : Calverley, Cleckheaton, Drighlington, Horton, Idle, North Bierley, Pudsey, Shipley, Thornton, Wilsden
• GRO volumes : 9b (1892-1938).

So must be a transcription error

 

[kirkstall]

The entries are correct on FreeBMD and hence the original quarterly GRO index is also correct.. What is wrong on those, and why I started looking, is the age of one entry.

 

[peter]

Burley (in Wharfedale) is not a registration district but North Bierley definitely is

Indeed.

So must be a transcription error

That doesn't follow - how can you be certain that the assistant registrar wrote the name correctly if you haven't seen the register?

The entries are correct on FreeBMD and hence the original quarterly GRO index is also correct.

That also doesn't follow - you'd have to look at the image to be certain. For this quarter the indexes are printed so we can't be sure that what was written in the index is what appears in the copy register. (There are numerous examples in the handwritten quarterly indexes of registration districts written in a non-standard way. )

However the surname is shown in the quarterly indexes as Read, not Reid as in your original post, which demonstrates how easy it is for words that sound the same to be written down incorrectly.

 

[kirkstall]

Sorry my error I know the name is Read.

I have informed GRO so we will just have to wait and see if they do amend the entries.