Optimise Scotlandspeople searches

[sarenid]

It is probably me being somewhat dumb but in case there is anyone else like me I thought I would mention it.  When you search on statutory death indexes - especially the early ones 1855 - 1860s the age of death is often not included.  There is a button that says include unrecorded ages.  That switch I discovered after some expense only refers to ages put in the age range it does not include the year of birth range.  Thus if you tick the box but put in the year of birth it will only bring up those people whose age has been included and not those where it has not.   Thus:

I accept the logic that the unrecorded ages box only applies to the one but surely this could be linked to the year of birth?

frustrated Sarenid

[Jacquie in Canada]

I think one of the biggest mistakes people make when searching at SP is entering too much information.

With respect to the age at death box, I always leave that blank because I've found that keeping track of a person's real age wasn't really a priority back then. We look at census records and find an ancestor who was 25 in 1851, 30 in 1861 and 60 in 1871, for example. Using the birth year with a plus/minus of at least 2 without putting the age at death in works best IMO.

[buckhyne]

My advice to people just starting out on researching their family is to do what I did.

I knew my Lawrie family were from Fife (at least as far back as my g/grandparents) and years ago I just searched in Scotlandspeople for all births, marriages & deaths of Lawries in Fife.
There were hundreds and hundreds of them but at 1 credit per 25 line page it was worth it to print them out, wire bind them and have a hard copy.
I could then view them at my leisure and pick the ones I wanted to investigate.

This would work with any name, but of course the less popular the name, the easier (and cheaper) it is.

[Forfarian]

I accept the logic that the unrecorded ages box only applies to the one but surely this could be linked to the year of birth?

I think the problem arises from the fact that the age at death was not included in the handwritten indexes in the first decade or so. Therefore when the index was computerised it would have meant that to include ages at death they would have had to go back to the original books to extract the extra information.

For my part, I am glad they didn't because that would have taken a lot of time and would have delayed getting the rest of the index computerised.

[Forfarian]

Example: Search Statutory Register (SR) Marriages (1855-1929)
and Search Statutory Register (SR) Births (1855-1904))
From 1881 census - Rennie family, Govan. Flora Rennie, aged 16, born in Irvine, Ayrshire (her mother Jane born same place). I.e. born between 4th April 1864 and 4th April 1865 (the census was taken on the night of 3rd-4th April 1881 - earliest possible date is if she turned 17 on 4th April 1881 and the census taker appeared before midnight, latest possible date is if she turned 16 on 4th April and the census taker appeared after midnight.)
 1901: David Rennie dies, widow Jeanie Muirhead.
Search for marriage: David Rennie, Jeanie Muirhead, no matches. Neither are there matches with Jean* (note on wildcard searches: * matches any number of characters -including none, ? matches one character only -e.g. THOM*SON matches both THOMSON, THOMPSON, THOMASON, THOMASSON, etc. THOM?SON will match THOMPSON and THOMASON but not the others
Replace Jeanie with Jane, 1 match. Narrow it down to 1870, Glasgow (could have narrowed it down to district, but couldn’t be bothered). So Flora born before that wedding. Search for births, Flora Rennie 1864-1865, Ayr, Irvine. 0 matches. Replace Rennie with Muirhead, 1 match. 1864-1864 1 match.
Result: David Rennie married Jane Muirhead in Glasgow in 1870.
Result: Flora Muirhead born in Irvine, Ayrshire in 1864.
Total cost: 0 credits

Your technique works well, but that isn't a particularly good example. If I were looking for that information, I'd go straight to the IGI for it, because births and marriages between 1855 and 1874 are indexed there.
Search for marriage of David Rennie to  .... Muirhead. Result - marriage in Tradeston, Glasgow on 15 July 1870.
Ah! So Flora was born before the marriage.
Search for birth of Flora Muirhead in 1864 plus or minus 2 years. Result - born in Irvine on 1 May 1864, mother Jane Muirhead, father not named.
Bonus: Search using father's and mother's name. Result: two more children, born 1871 and 1873 in Glasgow.
Total cost: nil.

[plimmerian]

just wasted 30 credits trying to find a simple marriage of a widower, occupation baker, to an English born woman called Helen (as per 1901 from ancestry.co.uk)

only to find it was the wrong one

a 1911 census search also revealed the wrong man - why are you not able to look up a specific address or have I over looked this?

a death in 1911 was also revealed (age matched too) which also turned out to be the wrong man!

I thought the powers that be wanted people to embrace their Scottish roots - I'd have more success getting into Fort Knox then cracking the access to Scotlands People website

I've not got the will power to search any more or spend the money, which should have resulted in a more direct and successful hit - if only they were willing to allow search criteria as on the English and Welsh 1911 search engine - then I would have stayed longer and probably spent more time researching in depth.

It's just going to have to remain a closed door on that part of the world - which means they'll also miss out on possible tourism trade!

Rant over!

 

[Jacquie in Canada]

Was the information used in your search to specific and/or is it possible that the woman married under a variation of her given name like Ellen instead of Helen?

[Forfarian]

plimmerian, I suppose that's what happens when you believe everything you find on Ancestry.

Just be thankful you were not looking for a marriage in England and Wales (cost used to be £7 per certificate but it's gone up to over £8) or Australia or New Zealand (about $20-$30 per certificate IIRC).

[plimmerian]

Ancestry helped locate deaths on scotlands people that had been totally mistranscribed there!

Ireland not easy either - lucky to have the GRO and freebmd and the likes of Lancashirebmd or lanc-opc.org.uk to cross reference and get a more direct hit - you can either keep the free info as fact or send for official documents to confirm

It just seems Scotlands People is a money maker and not there for the good of the family historian - yes it must stop the fraudsters but doesn't help genuine researchers

I'm sure if you are familiar with and a regular user of the site it is a wonderful thing to have.