Searching the new GRO indexes - share your tips!

[JenB]

I'm finding some of the districts on the GRO website aren't exactly the same as on FreeBMD... and has anyone worked out why some say "Union" and some don't?

Quote from AntonyMMM

Registration Districts were set up in 1837 using the geographic areas covered by the existing Poor Law Unions, in the early years many districts used the word "Union" in the District name, but quite quickly this seems to have been dropped.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=745807.msg6103390#msg6103390

[BettyofKent]

Don't take any results as gospel, take everything with a pinch of salt as with so many sites.

Sacerdote & Clara BONNY had 8 children, but I could only find birth registrations for five of them on FreeBMD. Using this new GRO search I couldn't find any of them so tried again without using Clara's known maiden name. I found them all, (the missing three didn't use the names they were registered with) but all of them had their mother's maiden name as BRAHM, but it should have been ABRAHAMS, the A & S having gone AWOL!

Even worse with the children of Michael & Bertha COHEN. Seven children with the mother's maiden name different on each one, so I have:
SHMOSH
SCHMIRSH 
SMIRCH
SHMOUSCH 
SCHMAUSCH 
SCHMOUCH 
SCHMAUSCH
I've no idea yet which one is likely to be correct!

With these & other searches the results are giving me more questions than answers.

[Andrew Tarr]

I'm finding some of the districts on the GRO website aren't exactly the same as on FreeBMD... and has anyone worked out why some say "Union" and some don't?

This has been explored already - registration districts were originally based on the Poor Law Union districts.  Some continued as 'Union' for many years, others stopped quite soon.  As to 'why', I have no idea.

[BumbleB]

Don't take any results as gospel, take everything with a pinch of salt as with so many sites.

Sacerdote & Clara BONNY had 8 children, but I could only find birth registrations for five of them on FreeBMD. Using this new GRO search I couldn't find any of them so tried again without using Clara's known maiden name. I found them all, (the missing three didn't use the names they were registered with) but all of them had their mother's maiden name as BRAHM, but it should have been ABRAHAMS, the A & S having gone AWOL!

Even worse with the children of Michael & Bertha COHEN. Seven children with the mother's maiden name different on each one, so I have:
SHMOSH
SCHMIRSH 
SMIRCH
SHMOUSCH 
SCHMAUSCH 
SCHMOUCH 
SCHMAUSCH
I've no idea yet which one is likely to be correct!

With these & other searches the results are giving me more questions than answers.

My apologies, but I believe you are being very harsh. 

Elsewhere you have stated that these people are Jewish and/or German.  It is very possible that they do not know how to spell their own surname, and, with a heavy accent, the Registrar has to do his/her best to interpret that surname.

[carol8353]

Don't take any results as gospel, take everything with a pinch of salt as with so many sites.

Sacerdote & Clara BONNY had 8 children, but I could only find birth registrations for five of them on FreeBMD. Using this new GRO search I couldn't find any of them so tried again without using Clara's known maiden name. I found them all, (the missing three didn't use the names they were registered with) but all of them had their mother's maiden name as BRAHM, but it should have been ABRAHAMS, the A & S having gone AWOL!

Even worse with the children of Michael & Bertha COHEN. Seven children with the mother's maiden name different on each one, so I have:
SHMOSH
SCHMIRSH 
SMIRCH
SHMOUSCH 
SCHMAUSCH 
SCHMOUCH 
SCHMAUSCH
I've no idea yet which one is likely to be correct!

With these & other searches the results are giving me more questions than answers.

My apologies, but I believe you are being very harsh. 

Elsewhere you have stated that these people are Jewish and/or German.  It is very possible that they do not know how to spell their own surname, and, with a heavy accent, the Registrar has to do his/her best to interpret that surname.

Could they all read and write English,if not it is highly likely that each registrar would spell the name the way they heard it. Even something as simple as my name Carol,is often mispelt as  Carole. Imagine if the person involved could nto read it so would have no idea if it was correct or not( what was the correct way to spell it,is there one? !) 

[ReadyDale]

..... but all of them had their mother's maiden name as BRAHM, but it should have been ABRAHAMS, the A & S having gone AWOL!

Coincidentally, I saw a repeat of the Alex Kingston episode of WDYTYA? a day or two ago, where that exact thing was mentioned. The expert they spoke to said this happened often and they were effectively interchangeable.

[Sloe Gin]

My apologies, but I believe you are being very harsh. 

Elsewhere you have stated that these people are Jewish and/or German.  It is very possible that they do not know how to spell their own surname, and, with a heavy accent, the Registrar has to do his/her best to interpret that surname.

"Harsh"?  In what way has Betty been "harsh"? 
She's just shown us some spelling variations of a difficult name, and a not-so-difficult name.
Examples of why we sometimes have to think outside the box.

[Jon_ni]

I found one on FreeBMD for Guisborough district but GRO Index had it as Lofthouse, which is now known as Loftus, a town in the Guisborough Registration District.  As far as I know, Lofthouse/Loftus has never been a Registration District.

With use of Union etc it appears that the new index may be utilising exactly what was written at the top of the page at the time the Book was filled in so if 'wrong' the error may well have been made 100-150 years ago (assuming it is not a modern transcription entry from illegible handwriting on the page).

Lofthouse was a Sub-District within Guisborough, though generally we only come across these when we see the paper or pdf certificate.
The official paper version would say Registration District Guisborough / Birth in the Sub-District of Lofthouse.

The old page would look something like the attached from a pdf last week. In this case the Superintendent's Registrar's District Warwick should be typed into the computer, not the District Radford.

Registration County : Yorkshire North Riding.
Created : 1.7.1837 (originally "Guisbrough").
Abolished : 1.10.1936 (to become part of Cleveland and Whitby registration districts).
Sub-districts : Danby, Guisborough (Guisbrough), Kirk Leatham, Lofthouse (Loftus), Marske, Skelton.
https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/reg/districts/guisborough.html

Sometimes the Superintendents District name was identical to the Sub District name eg Births in the Sub-District of Southam in the Superintents District of Southam. Only way to tell for sure if the error was made then or now is to order the pdf but I'd probably put my money on the the computer entry. Can see me doing that after had spent an entire day inputting.

[BumbleB]

My apologies to you, also, Sloe Gin 

My interpretation was that Betty was "miffed" that there were so many interpretations of her ancestor's surname:

"Even worse with the children of Michael & Bertha COHEN. Seven children with the mother's maiden name different on each one, so I have:
SHMOSH
SCHMIRSH 
SMIRCH
SHMOUSCH 
SCHMAUSCH 
SCHMOUCH 
SCHMAUSCH
I've no idea yet which one is likely to be correct!"

However, she, herself, had to ask on the Europe Board, as to which one might be correct