RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: peterfelgate on Wednesday 15 September 10 23:46 BST (UK)
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Why do I keep finding surnames that are common words and which cause havoc when searching genealogy sites as they so often are used in the text of messages? So far I have Day and Branch, and Moth keeps finding "mother"!
Anyone else have similar examples?
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Know exactly what you mean.
I'm looks for Falls, Parrott, Sparrow, Sivers to name a few!
Jay
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I have a similar problem with the surnames Street and Shorter. :)
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I have Wood, Hunter, Workman, Feld, Smyth, Clyde, Gardner, Dexter, Pidgeon, Arthur, Kane, etc. all of which bring up loads in any search engine so search using quotes for full name or surname and place, etc.
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My worst are Drury ... I cant get rid of references to Drury Lane!
Caswell ... oddly, Caswell County is very difficult to exclude.
Cousins ... almost impossible.
Paul
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i know exactly what you mean
black and then theres the wilsons!!!!!
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I can add Lane. The surname Alderman is not all that common but just as hopeless for a Google search unless I can add a qualifier. Gazania
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As stated earlier, use quotes if you know a first name: "Joseph Drury" shouldn't result in hits for Drury Lane. Also, I have found combining the word genealogy or family with confusing names helps to limit the number of false hits. You can either do this with or without quotes: Clyde family scotland Or "clyde family" scotland; "Street genealogy".
Look at the Google advanced search to see what you can do. You can do Boolean searching (AND OR NOT) with AND being default. So if you know first names of some relatives you can do a search like, "Elias Street" OR "Joseph Street" OR "Matilda Street". You can also search drury aberdeen NOT "drury lane".
Hope this helps.
Nick
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If it makes you feel better, I also have Days, but the tree includes Bath (which can lead wrong directions), Church (thankfully leading the other direction), as well as directions (North, West), food (Rice, Trout), and countries (England, French, German, Irish), but my worst are those names that are common first names: Bryan, Boyd, Dennis, George, Howard, Jack, James, John, Joseph, Kelly, Lee, Lewis, Matthew, Ray, Stanley, Stewart, Todd, and Wade (which show every person with these first names). Even when you go to a site that only searches names, it is almost enough to cause despair. There should be a law against it!
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I have the same problem with the surname " Train" I come up with lots of Train schedules!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers
Anne
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I have Risk and Quirk. Fine so long as you can put them in a site with a "family name" field that allows you to be specific. Pity that I'm searching for both in Ireland.
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The name Cock/Cocks- I need say no more
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My worst is Roots, just about every family historian is searching for their roots!
Oddly enough though Rassell is also a problem - despite the name being quite rare so many searches give lots of Russell results, especially if the records have been digitised as often a letter 'u' is read as 'a' by computer programs.
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Ferry, no matter what I try search-wise it always seems to come back to aquatic transport.
and
Stockton, you would be amazed at how many towns are named this,( I also have Sunderland on the same line)
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I've got Berkshire! And they lived in Reading after they moved from Hampshire!
Imagine trying to search the Hampshire archives website for Berkshire, or searching for Berkshire Reading anywhere!
They seem to have found it a bit of a problem themselves, as a lot of the later lines changed the spelling to Barkshire.
Anne
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Anne, that must be the winner ;D what a nightmare.
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Page, was my biggest nightmare ::)
ambers
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My grandmother's maiden name was Church ... a total nightmare for searching parish records in particular!
A search for <"John Church" + marriage>, for example, brings up every reference to weddings held in churches dedicated to St John.
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The name Cock/Cocks- I need say no more
I know what you mean my Cock family in Kent are a real pain - oh and I have Pain(e)s too, and they are one. Laws also ;D Chrisann
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You can imagine what I get searching for Stables ;D
Jean
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I've got Painter, Fisher and May causing problems as you would expect.
The one that suprised me was Brind - I never knew there is a Hamlet in East Riding of Yorkshire - I do now!
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I have Heard, which is hopeless in newspaper searches and searching for the Bird family has rarely been successful. ;)
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Look at the Google advanced search to see what you can do. You can do Boolean searching (AND OR NOT) with AND being default. So if you know first names of some relatives you can do a search like, "Elias Street" OR "Joseph Street" OR "Matilda Street". You can also search drury aberdeen NOT "drury lane".
There are a few other tricks:
You can do Drury -Lane which is equivalent to your Drury NOT Lane.
Try Ferry ~Ancestry although Bird ~Ancestry doesn't seem to do quite so well.
Added: You can also refine with "+" which is supposed to mean "must contain" but I can't think of an example right now.
Paul
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I have Childs Put it in any search and you get "Child of" "Stilborn Child of" etc.
Drives me nuts when I dont have a first name to add to it!
On the plus side tho .................... Its was getting a whole load of "Stillborn child of" results that led me to realise that sometimes search engines have a whole list of stillborn children listed under their parents name not their own..............and found me my mums long lost 'memory of a baby cousin' that she was convinced maybe she had imagined existed!
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I have any amount of James Pattersons... I'm sure I must be related to that author, as he keeps appearing when I do a search!
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::) Bridges - all I ever find are cousins with the names suspension, arched, box, girder, cantilever, London, Tower . . . . . . .
Pat ...
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My Pearl(e) family cause a lot of trouble with searches, because I get screeds of stuff about necklaces and other items of personal adornment, and very little about people. And when I do get people, it's those with Pearl as their first names, rather than their surnames.
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! "Dixon"!!!!
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The surname " Christopher " from Sussex it driving me nuts.
I`ll say no more
Omega
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I have a few...
Court
Baker
Gale
Hacker
The Hacker one is amusing. I don't think any of my ancestors were keen on breaking into the Pentagon's mainframe!
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I wasn't really meaning general searches of the internet where I know you can do filtering; I was thinking more specifically of sites such as rootschat itself where the filtering isn't so comprehensive - entering "hare" finds all occurences of offers the share info, moth brings up "mother", branch brings up "my branch of the family" etc!
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Paine payne pain is a real pain to search for.
Also Hutson brings up loads of hudsons thinking its a misspell
Saunders keep getting sanders
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Doesn't the Rootschat search facility allow the specification of whole words (e.g. by putting them in " ", as on Google)? This would avoid getting all the 'mother's if you're looking for 'Moth's.
I've recently tapped into the Martineau family (which produced several interesting civil engineers and Mayors of Birmingham and one VC recipient, and generally has a good internet presence) in my researches and find it's one of the worst transcribed surnames on Ancestry and FindMyPast censuses, passenger lists and other handwritten sources. The transcriber generally gets the Martin bit right, but the last three letters can be anything -- Martinson, Martinean, Martineas... So I invariably have to search with the variants turned on (FindMyPast) or for Martin* (Ancestry) which pulls up heaps of Martins that I know are irrelevant before I even start searching.
I know it's not a very common name but it's not that odd, and not as unusual or odd-sounding as Dawbarn, which features largely in my tree but with fewer transcription errors.
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I wasn't really meaning general searches of the internet where I know you can do filtering; I was thinking more specifically of sites such as rootschat itself where the filtering isn't so comprehensive - entering "hare" finds all occurences of offers the share info, moth brings up "mother", branch brings up "my branch of the family" etc!
I have a similar experience when searching 'Tuck' on RootsChat - 125 pages and most of them are chatters who are stuck. I'm not complaining though because I am probably one of them ;)
Margaret :D
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Cant, always looks for can't and Corns.
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I've got the same problem as Gaille with Child.
Bonus is almost equally as bad!
Carole
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Well, I'm mainly researching 'Choppin'...in general internet searches I get: Choppin' trees, Choppin' Cotton, Choppin' 'em up, Choppin' Broccolli(which apparently was a skit on the US tv show SNL in the '80's thats' gone viral)...etc. I'm also researching within Demerara, Guyana...I get pages upon pages of nothing but Demerara sugar and rum!
Within message boards, as above, it picks up every reference to chopping something. Argh. ???
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I can 'Google' all of the names in my tree and have sometimes found links,
One name, GUY, and at best I get references to Guy's Hospita,l at worst Gay dating sites !
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I have a few in mine...
Miles.....keeps bringing up distances
Down
Page
Chandler.....both occupation and shop
Warman......some interesting ones to do with war
and of course Rampling....I have to exclude Charlotte the actress and Danny the DJ!!
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.. not in my direct line but in trying to trace a cousin of my father whose mother remarried, I ended up searching for a Backlog.
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STREET is the most difficult I have to cope with, although when I try searching WASE Google insists I mean Waste! I also have GAY which leads to many sites I'm not really into
Steve
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I have found ancestors before named John Peel and John Terry.
Didn't I have fun googling those!!
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Yes - I've an Elizabeth Taylor & a Mary Pickford in my lines - and I forgot to mention the fun I have Googling my FOOK family
Steve
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My problem is my "Child" family, even when qualified by a christian name. Not only impossible to search for, but also impossible on sites like GR where people insist on putting "child" in the surname on their trees.
David
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My problem is my "Child" family, even when qualified by a christian name. Not only impossible to search for, but also impossible on sites like GR where people insist on putting "child" in the surname on their trees.
David
I'm sure my Child family are out there somewhere, but I may never find them! Talk about needle in a haystack.
Carole
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STREET is the most difficult I have to cope with, although when I try searching WASE Google insists I mean Waste! I also have GAY which leads to many sites I'm not really into
Steve
Try Googling for "WASE" may get around that
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I've got a few names that cause problems when searching
TOPE - BTopenworld email addresses
BORER - lots of laborers
VAUS - addresses in VA.US (Virginia, USA)
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Try googling Wood - impossible to get a sensible result other than furniture, golf clubs, floors, anything else you can think of that is made of wood and wooded areas!!!!!
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Arrrgggg
Earlier this week I added a new name to the tree - Moses Xerxes - try googling that !!!
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I have
HILL with a William and a Fanny
LEATHER lots of leather products
FLOOD lots of water!!!!
CURRIE glad it is not Curry or that may also cause problems
Carolyn
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Arrrgggg
Earlier this week I added a new name to the tree - Moses Xerxes - try googling that !!!
There doesn't sem to be any problem if you put it in quotation marks.
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I have just tried the quotation marks - and it is a little better, but still alot of hardwood flooring and campsites!!! lol
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I don't get any of campsites or hardwood flooring. Are you putting both words within one set of quotes?
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doh! No - I wasnt - much better results when you put the full name in within the quotes!!! :-[ lol
Thank you for the tip - this will help my searching no end!!! ;D
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I have a struggle researching my "Shearing" line, even the London Gazette has thousands of references to sheep shearing regulations which makes it nigh impossible to find WWI events :-\
When Google added its ultimate all singing all dancing technic gizmo I lost all hope of tracing my MILLAR branch as it insists on only giving me results for MILLER and as that was a very common occupation in days of yore there are a zillion pages of 'em. :'(
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You can imagine the results when I google Incher.
Jackie
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try behindthefrogs suggestion - it really cuts down on the rubbish!!!
type in the first and last name of your ancestor - in quotation marks
this is not to say that you still dont have none relevant search results - but the search is focussed upon who you are looking for!!! :D
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I have a struggle researching my "Shearing" line, even the London Gazette has thousands of references to sheep shearing regulations which makes it nigh impossible to find WWI events :-\
Try searching Shearing -sheep
When Google added its ultimate all singing all dancing technic gizmo I lost all hope of tracing my MILLAR branch as it insists on only giving me results for MILLER and as that was a very common occupation in days of yore there are a zillion pages of 'em. :'(
try searching Millar -Miller
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no - I mean searching for 'James' Shearing and 'John' Millar.
So ... you google for "James Shearing"
See what this comes up with!!!
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No, try searching for Shearing -Sheep the - means exclude results with this word.
If you search "James Shearing" you will not get results for "Shearing, James", "James N Shearing" or his brother John.
To enhance the search further try Shearing +James -sheep. Anytime you notice a common word cropping up that you don't want simply add a -word or -"unwanted phrase" to your search query. Note there is no space between the - and the word or phrase you want to eliminate.
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I have most trouble with the name NAIL. Google just thinks I want a manicure.
Even googling my ancestor "Benedict Nail" - in quotes - only brings up salons.
Alexander
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hmm; Ive not used -word so it will be interesting to see the results.
Out of curiosity, earlier tonight I used the advanced search looking for the place named "Balloan" .... which my ancestors resided in. Google still managed to insert a few "ballon" words into the results lol
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I've got Quarrell and Fury. >:(
You can imagine how many newspaper articles come up with those words included.
Cheers, Alison :D
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Ive been looking for a ship called "Bourneup"
I keep getting Melbourne up.
Even with the ""
>:( Ted
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Ive been looking for a ship called "Bourneup"
I keep getting Melbourne up.
Even with the ""
>:( Ted
Hi Ted,
I just googled ship bourneup and a couple of references came up. Spelling changed to Bourneuf though. Don't know if it's the ship you're looking for; out of Liverpool to Australia.
Below those are refs for emigrant ship Bourneup.
Good luck,
Regards, Alison :)
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Thanks Alison I found that one too.
But I found the info I wanted through someone on Rootschat so all is good.
It was just another G :o gle moment
;D Ted
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I have a Royal Albert Quarrell :o
I've tried the trick mentioned earlier in this thread about putting a minus sign and then hall and it does take away all those Royal Albert Hall references. Still plenty of others to eliminate though.
So thanks JustKia
Cheers, Alison :)
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I have HILLS thats not easy to google
Also Parker, Gurr, Hutt, Rieu and many more
Hazel
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Thomas O'Malley
.. sounds like a perfectly normal, even if rather common, name but if I try to search on it, I get an awful lot of results that seem to think I just want the lyrics to a song! ::)
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Ware.
hardware, earthenware, silverware, Tupperware .....
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I have Wild, Belt, Storey which all give different meanings. :(
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Ware.
hardware, earthenware, silverware, Tupperware .....
Search for " ware " with a space within the quotes before and after the word. This removes most but not all instances of warehouse as well.
David
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I have March and Reading(s) as well as Marsh
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Mine bring up anything to do with the villages/places that have the name.
Salkeld - little Salkeld
Hartwell - mainly Hartwell House
Aldridge - village/town in Walsall
Sharon
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Mine bring up anything to do with the villages/places that have the name.
Salkeld - little Salkeld
Hartwell - mainly Hartwell House
Aldridge - village/town in Walsall
Sharon
On google
You can remove the firrst two of those by adding -"Hartwell House" and -"Little Salkeld"
Similarly tedscout can add -Melbourne to his search. It comes down to telling the search what you don't want. The google searches will often search rootschat for you.
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The name Summers in Pembrokeshire brings up hoilday parks.
Albert Finney, but mine was not the actor :-X.
Ambers
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Marr
Almost every family history website uses it as an abbreviation for 'marriage'. ???
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I have Hill (including a William Hill but not a bookie)
Leather ( lots of leather goods)
Flood (things to do with water)
Currie (not curry)
When I was a child I thought it was so funny that one Grandmother had been a Pursell (pronounced Persil like the soap powder) and the other had been a Hynnes (like Heinz as in Heinz beans) but they do not give me any problems
Carolyn
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I have Routledge (sometimes Americanized to Rutledge). A search brings up thousands of references to the Book Publishing Company by that name.
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It gets to be good fun when one of the ancestors has the same name as a famous person of about the same era.
One of mine was Thomas Bewick. Put that in and I get the famous woodcut maker of some 50 years before. Trying to sort out mine is tedious.
AC
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I published quite a few articles and reports in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a once popular
singer musician with my exact name, so it is almost impossible for me to drill down to an internet reference to provide people with links to my stuff when they are interested. It is one of the reasons I don't have an internet "social sites" presence: I'm afraid I'd get lost in the noise. Ah well, I keep telling myself I prefer anonymity...
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I regularly search for "Alstead", since virtually everyone in the UK with that surname is a cousin of some sort.
Unfortunately, there's a place in New Hampshire with the name. On Google, I can add tokens to restrict the results:
alstead -hampshire -nh -estate
When I tried the same type of search on Bing, it insisted on returning hits for Real Estate agents dealing with property in Alstead Hew Hampshire.
Twenty three pages of them. :'(
The first interesting result was on page 24.
I have not used Bing for any sort of internet search since.
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It is always worth getting to know the "language" used when searching on websites you use regularly. Some can get quite complex. For instance a search I use on eBay (note the minus sign is again used to exclude things):
(daimler, lanchester, rotax) (192???, 193???, vintage, veteran) -kart -wifi -"7149973" -401444
I want to see items mentioning any of the 3 brands in the first set of parentheses, but only when they also mention one of the date periods mentioned in the 2nd set. Of these, I want to exclude the ads placed by those who believe that a 1990s go-kart is "vintage", and the hundred of ads placed by companies with those phone numbers who insist on mentioning every brand of vehicle ever made. The exclusions mean I see 665 results now rather than 3914 in the vehicle parts section.
Access to Archives (A2A) used to have a very good search language, allowing you to find articles where two words occurred in proximity.
<surname> near10 bastard was one of my common searches. You can tell what sort of lives my ancestors lived!
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My family name is Hall gives lots of problems in searching!
Sarah
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I'd bet Butt causes you some problems too Sarah. ;D
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Well Butt is a bit of an unfortunate name not that I would have ever said that to my grandmother! However it was actually quite a useful name as my great uncle changed his name when he moved to the USA and it made it easier to find the family.
Sarah
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You should try typing Pine into searches (especially on the directories site!). The search finds addresses, all kinds of public houses, and of course anything made of pine. Occasionally it tosses up the odd Pine person, just to keep me interested.
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I always have issues with the surname Key especially when I haven't got a first name to go with it. If I google search for 'Key family staffordshire' i get lots of hits for Key family history collections within staffordshire which would be great if it was a collection about the Key family but it isnt :(
The do have 1 surname that is funny to search and thats 'Bullock' if I search the British newspaper Archives for the surname I get lots of results for articles regarding bulls for sale lol ;)
Michelle
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try searching for "Helps" !!
i also have Bulloch/Bullocks,
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I have an ancestor called Eliab Box. Various sites insist I mean Elizabeth when I do searches. I've even seen a printed transcription of his baptism record where they've first written Elizabeth but then it was thankfully crossed out!