Thanks for your kind reply. I have not yet joined Scotland's People, as the index searches I have tried so far have been largely unsuccessful (too many returns or no returns when I know there should be one), leading me to believe that they have similar transcription errors to those I find on Ancestry. Frequently, index searches result in far too many returns - I do not want to pay to view 39 images to find the one right one. In the event that I did not find the image from an index search, I would be left browsing census images for the entire parish at 6 credits per image - a costly sum, or viewing the 39 images at 25 p per view.
Yes, for some common names it can be annoying to get too many results. But the parish registers are fully indexed with the names of the child and both parents (assuming that the information is on the original record of course).
As for transcription errors, they don't exist because SP has no transcriptions (apart from the one of the 1881 done by the LDS, which does contain errors, some of them major), only originals.
There are indexing errors, but they are far fewer than on, for instance, Ancestry, and when any error is brought to their attention they correct it very quickly.
The instructions on the Scotland's People website, as I understood them, were that I would find the image I wanted by doing an index search and then pay for each image viewed.
Yes, that's right.
It sounds, from your explanation, that I may have misunderstood the instructions. Is there a way to narrow the results so I am only actually paying to see likely candidates?
There are ways of seeing the whole of a parish register without paying separately for each page. In particular, the LDS filmed and indexed most of them, and you can view the microfilms in local libraries (free) and family history centres (if you are a member) in Scotland. You can also, or you used to be able to, arrange for your local LDS Family History Library to rent the films you want to see, and then view them there.
You could also try FreeREG
https://www.freereg.org.uk/, though it is a long way from having covered all parishes. Using this you might be able narrow down which originals you actually want to see.
(The best way, of course, is to book a day or three in the Scotland's People Centre in Edinburgh, but I assume that you are not in Scotland so that may not be the simplest answer for you.)
By the way, which site do you belong to that had the information that he was a widower?
FindMyPast. If it had been my own family I would have checked the original on SP just to be sure.
I am on ancestry and that information was not transcribed by them.
That doesn't surprise me in the least. Not that FindMyPast is 100% reliable either - I have devoted quite a bit of effort recently to submitting corrections to them. And more or less all the available online transcriptions introduce information which is not on the originals; in particular they all (mis)calculate the year of birth by subtracting the claimed age from the census year. The year of birth is
never on an original UK census, or at least not on the ones available for research so far.
Also, you say that Scotland's People is the only place to see the census images online. Do the LDS Family History Centres not have them as well? I ask because I am in the process of mounting an expedition to my nearest LDS Centre.
No. LDS Family History Libraries do not have images of the Scottish census or of Scottish BMDs online, other than via Scotland's People of course. They have the census (1841-1901) on microfilm, and you can view the microfilms In an LDS FHL in the same way that you can view the parish registers on microfilm.
Incidentally I just re-ran the search for John Paton in the 1851 census in Methven in the SP index. I got three results without adding other details, for example his age or the name of someone else in the household, so it was easy enough to see which was the one you want.
Half a dozen clicks of the mouse sufficed to find him in the 1861 census in Perth.