Searching at Ancestry

[Megan Roberts]

On unusual surnames I oftern search the different web sites using that as the only critieria. However, today whilst on Ancestry I made a mistake and put the surname in the first / middle name box - and what do you know? Up came a set of results - not many, but just enough for me to uncover yet another part of the family where the mother had used her maiden name as the middle name of her children.

So it just goes to prove - anything goes!

PS - other sites insist on a surname.

[Megan Roberts]

I stand corrected thanks.

[arthurk]

In a similar vein I once came across a tip for the Ireland 1901 census which enabled me to find my grandfather. This is that sometimes forenames and surnames were swapped over, so it's a good idea to try that way as well. In my grandfather's case, he was a teacher listed on an institution-type form, and nearly everyone in the school was recorded as Surname, Forename, in spite of the column headings being Forename followed by Surname. Someone had inserted a handwritten note to clarify this, but it was evidently not enough to make a difference when the census was transcribed and indexed.

Anyway, I have little doubt that what applied here may also apply to censuses from other years and places, and possibly other kinds of record too.

Arthur