Ellen Gaites; One of Yours, or One of Ours?

[Steve G]

  The plot thickens! Just a note to myself, really. But; Frederick Thomas Gaites (Fred the Marine) doesn't die.


 That's to say, I have him on the 1891 census. Then I have him referred to, on his son, Thomas Robert's MC of 1896, as still being a Hawker. It's well enough recorded that he returned to doing that once he left the Royal Marines.

 Then he completely vanishes off the face of the earth. There is No Death Record. My friend and rellie ~ the guy who went to Kew and dug out Fred's military records ~ has been tearing his hair out for years over it. Last night I trawled through a thousand Death Records on A.com. He isn't in there. Not as Gaites, Gates or any other near miss.

 
 Could Ellen have been coming back over to get him? Take him away to Canada ....?

[AMBLY]

Hi Steve

ummm.........sorry, can't resist - there is this one:
http://freebmd.rootsweb.com

Frederick T GAITES age 78 (born abt 1842)
DEATH: Dec Qtr 1920 - Portsmouth - 2b 586


Cheers
AMBLY

[Steve G]

  W T F ....?! 

(Deep breaths .....) Ok, Ambly. Explain, please? Just WTF is going on here? I mean, I'm guessing that A.co.uk only show us part of the FBMD transcriptions, right? And my mate and I are both so blindly damn beholden to our faith in what we pay an arm and a leg each year for that we can't see that. Am I in the ball park here?

 I genuinely feel like beating my head against a wall now. Really I do. Instead, I think I'll pick out a few more 'dead end' rellies and look for Them on FBMD.

 Ye've just made two old men Extremely happy!  Please accept this shed load of Kudos, from the pair of us ~ Failed Fred Finders!

[AMBLY]

Hi Steve 

Well, you're welcome - I hope it's him! I still can't find him on the 1901 though, if it is.

I didn't realise this - until you've said about Fred - but it appears the A.co.uk FreeBMD-Transcribed death indexes cut off at 1915! So that's why he doesn't come up there.
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/rectype/vital/freebmd/bmd.aspx
After 1915, one has to trawl thru the images, qtr by qtr, year by year.

So it would appear, FreeBMD-proper has forged ahead (sometimes way up to the 1930's+ ) and A'co has not uploaded (for whatever reason) the latest version of  FreeBMD's database.

Personally, I way prefer FreeBMD proper. Though there are times & circumstances when A'co has it's uses. In FreeBMD proper, one can use the * in any position and there's far more room to manouver in a search. Sometimes at a busy time of day, it throws a fit and won't do a search with lots of * because it takes too long, but if you wait till a quiet time, you can usually persuade the server to complete a search!

The Marriages etc I found for Theresa and Ellen, I uses FreeBMD proper, not A'com.

Cheers
AMBLY