Where have all the JOHN THOMAS's gone between 1881 and 1901?

[bestie]

And NO it's not a joke! Iam looking for a Trevelyan Thomas born around 1880 in the Llangollen area...with no luck. I know his elder brother JOHN THOMAS was born in 1879 so I went to the 1881 census and looked up all those born in Wales for that date plus 2 years either way. This gave me 582 hits with 111 having the exact date. I then went to the 1901 census, same name, same dates, same place but had only 23 hits with 3 sharing the exact date. Now I know times were 'ard in them days but not THAT hard. Anybody got any ideas as to why I had so few hits on the 1901? I may be missing a trick here! Jim

[bestie]

Solved it! Pretty obvious really...the 1881 census has been formatted with all the Welsh counties put under the heading 'Wales'. The 1901 is just a direct transcript so only those that had originally entered Wales as their birth place would show...an entry for Glamorganshire wouldn't. In the end I just entered John Thomas, his age and male and I got hundreds...I then removed all those from outside Wales leaving a mere 200 odd individuals to choose from!