I've noticed that there hasn't been any updates in this thread for quite a while even though there have been a few changes at ScotlandsPeople.
Census Updates1. They added another search parameter for all the census except 1881 quite some time ago in which the forename of a second person can be included in a search.
From SP:
Second Person Forename
If you know the forename of another person whom you would expect to find in a household, enter the forename here to refine your search results.
Please Note:
If a household is spread over two pages, and both members appear on separate pages, the search will not return this entry.
If two households appearing on the same image have the same names as your search criteria, both will be returned.
A search on a second person forename will return records which contain exact matches of that forename only. For example, entering ANN will only return ANN. MARY ANN, ANN ELIZA or ANN J. , etc. will not be returned. Variations in the spelling of the name, for example, Anne or Annie, will also not be returned. To find any of these, you must either search with each variation separately or use Wildcards for example, Ann*.
2. A person I was helping with some Scottish research had a problem with an entry from the 1881 census and contacted SP. In the response she received (they corrected the problem), she was told that SP will be adding the images for the 1881 census soon (possibly in Dec 2008). When that occurs, the search mechanisms will be the same for all census databases.
I haven't seen the "Return all forenames that begin with these characters" feature mentioned in this thread regarding searching so I thought I would mention it. This box is checked by default at SP and can be very helpful when searching names that have spelling variations, such as Catherine, Margaret or names which may have been abbreviated, such as Alex for Alexander, Thos for Thomas or Jos for Joseph. Using Catherine as an example, if you enter Cat you will get back results for Catherine, Catharine, Cathrine, Cathryn, etc. (Note for a name like Catherine, you might want to try searching Kat as well in case they were registered as Katherine, Katrine, etc.). You can enter as few as one letter so if you have a person who is Jean on one census, Jane on another, Janet on yet another and Jessie on still another, you can use this feature and just enter the letter J and specify that you are searching for a female and you will get results for all those names.
I think one of the mistakes that I've heard about over and over again when people say they can't find someone is the mistake of being too specific. For example, if you include a year of birth in the search parameters be sure to include a plus/minus of at least 2 years (IMO). Take into account spelling variations for forenames and surnames. As mentioned in this thread, take advantage of searching with wildcards. Remember that soundex does not always work. For example, I was once helping a person who was researching the surname Stewart and when using soundex the results only came up with the Stewart surname but when I did a soundex search of Stuart, I got both Stuart and Stewart surnames in the results. Another person I was helping was researching the Muirie/Muiry surname and when using soundex for Muirie, no Muiry names were included in the results and vice versa. In this case using wildcards to search Muir* worked best.
Jacquie