Missing pages on 1861 census

[Susan48]

Yesterday I discovered that a household living in Stockwell Street Colchester in the parish of St Martin could not be found on the 1861 census on Findmypast, although I had originally found the record on Ancestry some years ago and therefore had the precise reference. A search by name, address or reference drew a complete blank and it seems that the whole parish is missing from Findmypast. I notified them and received a grateful response within 24 hours. Has anyone else come across similar omissions when comparing websites?

 

[Bryman]

I had a nearly similar experience a couple of days ago when I was entering ancestor details into LC from the 1881 census. I had found a census page (3077/132/31) for a pupil attending Rugby School using Ancestry. The reference was very clear on the hand-written form. When I clicked on the check arrow, FMP could not find him. I tried a few variations of Folio/PageNo in case the details had been stored incorrectly but still drew a blank. With only the Piece specified, ie with nothing for Folio or PageNo, together with the pupil's name, FMP did find the record.

I asked Peter if I might be doing something silly but before he could reply, I found that it was possible to find the person using reference 3077/131/29. Peter thought that might have been the first page of those particular census entries and hence wrongly indexed by FMP. Might something similar account for your missing records in the 1861 census?

 

[Rhian]

I had a similar problem to Bryman yesterday, while checking some data for a 12th cousin. He had transcribed the book and folio numbers for 1841 with an error of being one less and did not record the page. It took some creative use of wildcards to find the entry though he may not be related to either of us.

I did spend some months years ago trying to find my GG grandparents in the 1841 census, they had married 2 months earlier and I wanted to confirm they lived in a pub in Wales which I knew the family owned before and after 1841 and also if her sister was with them to help solve the migration from Norfolk problem. It was only after much fruitless searching that I found the FMP page of missing census pages and half the village I needed was marked as lost. But that was missing from every site I checked which is different to missing on only one site.

 

[Susan]

My gr gr gr grandfather's entry in the 1861 census is missing from Ancestry but it is on FMP. On Ancestry the images go from page 6 to page 8, missing out page 7 which contains gr gr gr grandfather.

 

[Susan48]

Might something similar account for your missing records in the 1861 census?

I don't think so, Bryman, because when I carry out an address search on FMP the street name does not appear, nor do other streets in the same parish, so it looks as though a whole section is missing. FMP admitted this cropped up from time to time and they are grateful to users who alert them to this so that they can (eventually) do something about it.