Ron, not only do you not read messages carefully, you don’t seem to look at the 
findmypast screens which you are pontificating about.

1. You say that the findmypast search is based on the Registration District but 
on the Basic search screen you can search by birth place, place of residence 
and COUNTY but NOT by registration district. It is only the Advanced search 
screen (which I rarely use, because I have not found it of much help) that you 
can also search by RD, civil parish, etc (etc depending on the census year). 
Incidentally the search of a database is based on one or more indexes.

2. The search list then takes you to the Household Transcription - which shows 
some of the reference numbers (but not Enumeration District or Schedule number 
unfortunately except for 1911), Registration District, Civil Parish, Address 
and COUNTY.

Your reference to searching for Ferguson in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire in the 
1851 census exactly proves my point - none found by Findmypast and 5 by 
Ancestry.

Did you not try the Ancestry search before responding?

By location I do not mean RD, I mean place, as defined (today) by geo-code.

John


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Ferguson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 05 February 2012 21:20
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Event Locations

John,

The only person who never misunderstands or never makes a mistake is the one 
who usually says nothing, or has tunnel vision. When I do I will admit it, but 
not in this case.

However, I think that we are talking at cross purposes. I believe that what you 
call the Location is what I would call the Registration District. The search in 
FMP is based on the latter. I usually find it best when looking for returns 
near a boundary not to enter a county ie. leave it set to "any".
Searching for Ferguson in Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, will not be found in
1851 by searching for that location, because the Registration District is 
Stockton, County Durham. Before searching any county I always check the 
Registration Districts.

I am not too happy with this way of searching, myself, although it does have 
advantages for those of us who carry out One-Name Studies, but my point is that 
on FMP's page for a family result it gives the Registration details, the 
Location has to be obtained from the Image - I usually do this with Ancestry as 
well btw. , because I do not wish to reply on somebody else's interpretation, 
which one is advised to do anyhow.

Ron Ferguson
http://www.fergys.co.uk



Ron Ferguson
http://www.fergys.co.uk.

-----Original Message-----
From: John Clifford
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 7:01 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Event Locations

Ron, I have noticed before that you don't seem to read messages very carefully 
before replying.

I did not say that all Registration Districts are named after a town and I did 
not say that the presentation of Registration Districts is inaccurate.

I did say that the presentation of counties is deliberately inaccurate in the 
transcription and hence in the Household View, the Indexing and the Search 
facility as well.

For instance, if you know that a person or family lived in Northamptonshire, 
you will never find them by searching in the Findmypast census transcriptions 
if they happen to live in the Northamptonshire part of Banbury RD because 
Findmypast knows that Banbury (the town) is in Oxfordshire and changes 
Northamptonshire on the census page image to Oxfordshire.

Take the Mold family. If you do an exact search in the 1881 census for people 
living in Northamptonshire with surname Mold, Ancestry will give you
126 individuals but Findmypast will give you only 30.

You might also have deduced that when I alleged that Findmypast ignore "the 
fact that the actual County for the location concerned is correctly written on 
the original registration form" this means that I do know where to find an 
address on a census page.  In the Findmypast 1911 census images you can also 
click on an "Address" link to see the accompanying form which the enumerator 
has filled out; it is sometimes illuminating to compare the two versions of the 
address.

John Clifford



-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Ferguson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 05 February 2012 15:15
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Event Locations

John,

Firstly, Registration Districts are not necessarily named after a town, for 
example "West Ward". The presentation of the the Registration Districts is 
accurate and using them correctly identifies exactly where the record can be 
found by/at the GRO.

Prior to the 1911 census the Location was given at the top of ever census page, 
but for 1911 you need to look at that given by the householder on the bottom 
right of the image.

I am very glad that FMP did not take your advice.

Ron Ferguson
www.fergys.co.uk/

-----Original Message-----
From: John Clifford
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2012 1:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] Event Locations

The problem is less if you use Ancestry or other transcriptions instead of 
findmypast.

Registration Districts often cross county boundaries but are named after a town 
in one of the counties. Findmypast seem to insist on entering the name of the 
county which contains the town which is part of the registration district name 
for all the locations within that RD, regardless of the fact that the actual 
County for the location concerned is correctly written on the original 
registration form.

Whenever I have asked for a correction to the proper County name they have 
refused and then added "we aim to provide you with an exact copy of the 
original census page"  When I have pointed out that this is a blatant lie I 
have received no reply.

Not strictly related to Legacy I am afraid, but it is infuriating when one is 
trying to search for people born in a particular county and they don’t 
appear on a findmypast search (which is usually better than its competitors) 
not just as a result of human error but of deliberate policy.

John Clifford


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Ferguson [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 04 February 2012 11:14
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] Event Locations

Tony,

Which country's censuses are your referring to? For the English/Welsh censuses 
it may well appear that this is the case, whereas in fact it is not. The reason 
being that the locations are recorded in Registration Districts which are not 
the same as the locations, although the detail above the columns is.

Ron Ferguson
http://www.fergys.co.uk/


-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Rolfe
Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2012 5:41 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [LegacyUG] Event Locations


On Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:32:15 -0800 Bjørn K Nilssen

> I prefer that second school too. What I'm interested in is where that
> location is, and who shared it. Adding 10 or more differently spelled
> versions isn't really that useful IMO. It would be nice to have an AKA
> for locations too though, with date and text fields.

What would be really nice would be to have date-linked short names for a given 
location.  Something like

Long Name:  Sometown, someplace, Somecountry Short name: to 31 mar 1837: An 
original short name Short Name: to 1 Jan 1951: a different short name here 
Short Name: to: current short name for the place

One problem I have is that Census enumerators described the same location 
differently on different censuses.  It would be nice to record what they 
actually wrote, without having to make a different location entry for each 
census.  Now the program would pick the short name according to the date for 
the display.

Actually, it might be useful to have both short and long names varying by date 
with a "Location name" to identify it, but which isn't used in reports.



Legacy User Group guidelines:
http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp
Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our 
blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com).
To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp






Legacy User Group guidelines:
http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp
Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp
Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our 
blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com).
To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp


Reply via email to