Searching the new GRO indexes - share your tips!

[iolaus]

Dear Clairec666

Thank you for tip 2.  I have a death for someone aged 11 and I'm pretty certain it should be 11 months.  There is no way of checking. I've sought extensively for the death of this child at a later age but there is nothing, so I hope GRO address this fault quickly.

Melbell

The freebmd show them as 0 (or 1 if they are 13/14 months) - I've found that I can ascertain it by looking up the same death on the other index if GRO says 4 and freeBMD says 0 you can safely assume it's an age in months (or weeks I suppose)

[Nick_Ips]

Or days! 

[bugbear]

Here's a trivial one; if you're trying to search an extended period (say 15 years) to pick up all of a families births.

When you use ± 2 years, you cover 5 years in total so I use numbers ending in 2 and 7 thus:

1882 ±2 = 1880-1884
1887 ±2 = 1885-1889
1892 ±2 = 1890-1894
1897 ±2 = 1895-1899

Etc.

 BugBear

[clairec666]

A couple of things I've noticed this morning:

1) Be flexible with the spelling of the mother's maiden name, particularly for early records. E.g. for one family it switches between Dorks and Dawkes. She signed the marriage certificate with an x, so perhaps this isn't surprising.

2) Don't believe the 1911 census! I've found a child of my great-great-grandparents who died young, yet there are no "dead children" according to the 1911 census... had they forgotten her? I've purchased the PDF to prove she belonged to them. Now I'm wondering, how many more forgotten children will I find?

[ReadyDale]

1) If a woman has been married previously, don't expect all births to the second marriage to have the same maiden name - some may show as her actual maiden name, others may show her previous married name. Could be all one, all the other, or mix'n'match!! 

2) Having no maiden name at all (a dash) doesn't necessarily mean illegitimate. It could just mean that whoever registered the birth didn't know it (so where it normally says "Mother: Ann Smith formerly Jones", then the bit in red isn't there).
For example, the baby may have been born in a workhouse infirmary [maybe just as an "outpatient"] and the master (or whoever) just knew her as Ann Smith

[Andrew Tarr]

Here's a trivial one; if you're trying to search an extended period (say 15 years) to pick up all of a families births.

When you use ± 2 years, you cover 5 years in total so I use numbers ending in 2 and 7 thus:

That's for the Males - then you come back down the dates for the Females.  I wish we didn't have to choose a gender, I can't see the reason for that.  It CAN help, but it usually doesn't.

[bugbear]

Here's a trivial one; if you're trying to search an extended period (say 15 years) to pick up all of a families births.

When you use ± 2 years, you cover 5 years in total so I use numbers ending in 2 and 7 thus:

That's for the Males - then you come back down the dates for the Females.

Yes; I don't have a tip that helps the silly gender thing, but I did have a (trivial) tip for the years.

 BugBear

[Jon_ni]

I wish we didn't have to choose a gender, I can't see the reason for that.

I can only assume it is due to the display limitation of 250 names eg if searching for John Smith. On my feedback for the cert order suggested they gave a Both option, most of the time I would use that.

I've been using the tweaked search version by Chuffie since he posted it http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=758727.126 (page 15, reply 126) you just click on gender & year up or down & it updates, works for both ±1 & ±2. Don't have to subsequently click search. It may break if GRO update their end but guess can uninstall the additions. I just put it on Firefox, if I use Edge it is still the standard.

[BumbleB]

It does make a difference whether you designate male or female

My ancestor is Alison Appleyard, born 1847 in Halifax.  HE is my x grandfather.

I've just entered his details into GRO as male, OK = result

I've also entered same details as Female = no result.