ALFRED SURNAME - My Love Letter to ANCESTRY UK

[BushInn1746]

Sent to Ancestry this morning.

Looking for people with the ALFRED surname in Yorkshire.

There are not many on Free BMD for the whole of the England & Wales, 1837 to 1900.

However, I have noticed on your site, in regard to printed Yorkshire Electoral Registers some in colour you have inputted a lot with a forename of Alfred, as the surname!

What a rediculous thing to do, giving over a 1,000 results for a Thomas Alfred, search, when each person's Surname is NOT Alfred.

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Added:

Just realised, I didn't spell ridiculous correctly. But hopefully, they will understand.

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The name I have an interest in:- James Alfred, showing up in a child's name James Alfred Hood, (parents were from Selby, Yorks). But other middle forenames identified so far, are surnames, on this family line in my Tree.

[BushInn1746]

ALFRED - Surname
Two, Alfred, deaths came up on a Free BMD image, after the Alford, surname, Dec 1838 and before Jane Alfrey.

Deaths, Dec Qtr 1838
Charles Henry Alfred, Whitechapel  Vol. II, p.425

Thomas Alfred, Leeds, Vol. XXIII, p.236

Because Leeds is not far from Selby, Yorks, just out of curiosity I tried to order a £3.00 Certificate, but GRO online does not seem to return it.

I will report both apparently, Alfred surnames this evening.

I'm finding a few events missing on GRO online search.

[Bookbox]

ALFRED - Surname
Because Leeds is not far from Selby, Yorks, just out of curiosity I tried to order a £3.00 Certificate, but GRO online does not seem to return it.

If you use the Phonetically Similar Variations search function at GRO, you'll find the death under ALDRED (same ref.)

ALDRED, THOMAS       5 
GRO Reference: 1838  D Quarter in LEEDS  Volume 23  Page 236

[BushInn1746]

ALFRED - Surname
Because Leeds is not far from Selby, Yorks, just out of curiosity I tried to order a £3.00 Certificate, but GRO online does not seem to return it.

If you use the Phonetically Similar Variations search function at GRO, you'll find the death under ALDRED (same ref.)

ALDRED, THOMAS       5 
GRO Reference: 1838  D Quarter in LEEDS  Volume 23  Page 236

Oh brilliant thank you Bookbox.

For £3.00, I order it now.

Mark

[BushInn1746]

Registration District: LEEDS

13th November 1838 at No 6 Cato Street,
Thomas ALDRED,
Male,
Five years
Son of James ALDRED, Cloth Dresser,
Cause: Smallpox,
Informant: the mark of Mary ALDRED present at the death No 6 Cato Street,
Registered: 13th November 1838
Registrar: Edward Cooke.

Sure that d was an f in the Index (above).

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1897 James Alfred Hood, 34, married Sarah Jane Brookes, 30, at St Thomas Church, Derby, Derbyshire. Father: James Hood (deceased), Currier.

[MollyC]

Ancestry's "All results for Thomas Alfred" is complete nonsense.
In 1869, where on earth was a residence of "West Riding South, West Yorkshire"?

Ancestry handles these electoral registers in a totally ignorant way.  The only thing about them which is "West Yorkshire" is the modern record office from which they have been obtained and that should not appear anywhere in the description.  It happens to be in Wakefield, which was the county town of the West Riding, and so in 1974 it was given the responsiblity of managing the historical records of the whole authority, which is now divided across six counties.

On the first page of each polling district is "XYZ Parliamentary Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire" - not West Yorkshire.  The collection comprises all the registers produced by the county authority, and excludes those produced by the former boroughs which were responsible for their own elections. 

[BushInn1746]

Hello Molly

Yes, some records seem to depend on the depositing Archive. Some for Selby, in West Yorkshire, are held at the Northallerton and classed as NYAS records.

My gripe with Ancestry, was that I was searching Thomas Alfred, with Alfred as a Surname in their surname box. Even the results were showing as Thomas Alfred.

But when I examined a few images of 1,000s returned, Alfred was one of the forname/s and the surname was anything but Alfred.

Mark

[mckha489]

I looked at the “North Yorkshire” set.
If you look at the bulk transcripts you can see many of the names have been entered in the surname field. But it’s not 100%

Try searching with Mary in the surname field, then Mary in the forename field.

[MollyC]

Hello Mark,

I appreciate you have a specific transcription issue with Ancestry.  What I was saying is I don't have much faith in Ancestry's indexing, if their cataloguing of the entire set of registers is at fault because they have not managed to recognise which body created it, despite it being on page 1 of every section, and they have clearly never looked at a map.  My family's entries in the early 20th cent. registers are indexed as being in West Yorkshire, which did not exist, and where they never lived.  Selby was never in West Yorkshire, it was in the West Riding but was a part of the large slice added to the North Riding to become North Yorkshire.

In 1974 there was a legal requirement for local authority records to be archived by a successor authority, but because of all the boundary changes there had to be some agreement about who dealt with divided authorities, using a general archival principal that existing collections should not be split up.  Records which were already in Wakefield stayed there.

Records which were not created by a local authority can go elsewhere.  It depends upon the Archives Office accepting them as appropriate to its present area of interest.

Molly