My Ancestors beta - Scotland 1881

[peter]

I've added a button which searches the Scotland 1881 census at Ancestry. I've had to exclude the page number as it isn't on the Ancestry search form, and add the surname instead to cut down the number of results.

Unfortunately it doesn't provide as much information to non-subscribers (as you would get with the England & Wales 1881 census), but I hope it will still prove useful.

Please let me know how you get on with this latest update!

 

[Liberty]

This seems to work pretty well.
You will know the drawbacks; one is that since it only matches surnames it does not throw up the widowed daughter, or semi-adopted niece in the household. Another is that if you are dealing with a common surname (like Campbell in my case) a click on the button associated with my household - containing two Campbells - throws up 33 results (!).
I also tried it with my Gordons and Drapers and these give good results (and confirm that I did enter the right reference).

Thank you, Peter, for your continuous improvements.

 

[peter]

since it only matches surnames it does not throw up the widowed daughter, or semi-adopted niece in the household

It depends which arrow you click - it'll use the surname from the entry, which may not be that of the head of household.

Thank you, Peter, for your continuous improvements.

Thank you, Liberty, for being such a Superstar!

 

[Gillian]

Thank you, Peter. I went to all the trouble (well, hardly) of adding a first cousin three times removed and was surprised that her daughter came up automatically. Wow, Peter's really got things going I thought. Luckily it didn't take long for me to realise I'd already added said cousin 3xr via Scotlandspeople. But at least it gave me an opportunity to update her record.

 

[peter]

I've now found a way of searching by page number, so have added this parameter and dropped the surname - this brings it into line with the England & Wales search.

 

[Susan48]

I've just tried this out with my Scottish gt-grandparents and it's solved a minor mystery. The Ancestry page showed not just my ancestors but another family as well, including two women named Mary Gordon. As I don't subscribe to Ancestry I looked them up on Findmypast to see the full record and discovered that the two Mary Gordons, mother and daughter, lived in the same house as my ancestors, on the floor above them. My Scottish grandmother was born after the 1881 census and named simply Mary, but later in life she added the middle name Gordon, and I'd often wondered why. It looks as though the problem has been solved. Thank you, Peter!

 

[Martin C]

I have just checked my Scottish census references, and found a problem with the Volume/Registration number for one of them:
The reference, as shown on the image, is 03/04/1881 MELVILLE, ISABELLA (Census 1881 776/0B 002/00 016). Following the instruction "(enter as 168-2, 328-B, or 147 not as 168/2, 328B or 147/00)", I entered this reference on the Add an Ancestor page as Volume/Registration number: 776-B, Enumeration district: 2, Page: 16, and this appears on the My Ancestors page as 776-B/2/16. Clicking the check references button, Ancestry reports "Your Search returned zero good matches". Removing the hyphen from 776-B in the search url locates the matching page.

 

[peter]

I have just checked my Scottish census references, and found a problem with the Volume/Registration number for one of them:
The reference, as shown on the image, is 03/04/1881 MELVILLE, ISABELLA (Census 1881 776/0B 002/00 016). Following the instruction "(enter as 168-2, 328-B, or 147 not as 168/2, 328B or 147/00)", I entered this reference on the Add an Ancestor page as Volume/Registration number: 776-B, Enumeration district: 2, Page: 16, and this appears on the My Ancestors page as 776-B/2/16. Clicking the check references button, Ancestry reports "Your Search returned zero good matches". Removing the hyphen from 776-B in the search url locates the matching page.

That's right - fortunately only about 3% of entries are affected by this quirk of Ancestry's, and there is an article explaining what to do in the newsletter going out tonight or tomorrow. Your My Ancestors entry shouldn't be altered.