#9 Trick to help your family history

Try ALL the censuses

Look in all censuses for your missing relative, not just the first one after they leave home.  Edwin Padfield born c 1866 Glastonbury is not to be found in 1881, 1891 (misindexed as Ella) but does show up in 1901, 1911.  Richard Shugg isn’t at home at all after the age of 20 but he returns to England after his mother dies (according to her grant of probate), and sure enough he is in Cornwall in 1911 with enough information to work out where he has been in the intervening years.

#8 Trick to help your family history

Guess the name of the child
I had no idea what the name of Mr and Mrs Macdonald's child might be, and no easy way of finding out, so I guessed, and you can too.

I searched 1910-1915 for a child who had a middle name beginning with Manse.... (because the child's grandmother was Miss Mansell).  Success: one entry.  I found out that the child was called Margaret Mansell Macdonald, and it was very easy to move forward from there.  However be aware that the index chops off firstnames if they are too long, so it chopped off the last 'l' of Mansell.

#7 Trick to help your family history

If it sounds right, it is Wright

Drop some of the letters in the marriage search, Samuel Swift married as Sam; Catherine Lawry Marshall married as Catharine Lawry Marshall (looks the same doesn’t it!); Margaret Fewster married as 'Meggie'; Robert Hoskins married as Robert Hoskins Norman (in this case because the priest knew that he was illegitimate and wanted to humiliate him...)

#6 Trick to help your family history

Turn a death entry into an address

John Burnett James died in 1986 in Brighton but didn't leave a will.  I had hunted for a marriage but not got very far.  So, I found Jack James in the Brighton phone book then found a lady listed in the current electoral roll under that same address.  Jack's widow!

Yes she was still there even though she had died.  This led me to a number of places including the discovery that his widow had made the gloves for the present Queen's honeymoon in 1947.

#5 Trick to help your family history

Confirm the name at birth before you do anything

Ensure you have the right name.  I found that ‘Caroline Creed’ was really Catherine Creed after a lot of aggro.  The child was only at home in ONE census, and when she was, her name was given as 'Caroline' sending us on a wild goose chase, until I worked out she must have been Catharine.  I found that Mary Jones was born Edwyna M H Jones by guessing the registration district of her birth and looking for likely people.  As Edwyn was a family name, I knew I had the right lady.  I was stymied for a long time by her aunt listed as 'Ellen Jones' in the census.  She wasn't Ellen but Eleanor.  So, confirm the birth if you can before you go anywhere.  This is assuming the birth was registered of course (compulsory from 1870 onwards).

#4 Trick to help your family history

Leapfrog over that missing marriage

Find your relative in the census if you can’t find their marriage: I found that Elizabeth Stone married Thomas Lakin even though that marriage probably happened in India (and still hasn't turned up there); I found that Laura Emily Collins married James Young even though that marriage probably never happened at all.

Here's Laura at home in 1891 - I only spotted her as she was in the same household as her sister (who later proved her will).  I'd not have found Laura or her wonderful will without this census entry.

I had heard that Elizabeth settled in Oxford and had a lot of boys (mostly girls, actually!) But I couldn't find her marriage, or anyone in 1901 that matched her description, born in Secunderabad.  So I searched all Elizabeths born in India, and was later able to prove that Mrs Lakin was ours.

#3 Trick to help your family history

Make freebmd work for you - even when it's wrong

Don’t give up, not all freebmd marriages are recorded correctly.  I found the marriage of Jane Gibson to John Johnson even though it wasn’t coming up on freebmd.  I knew they'd married in Durham/Northumberland between 1851 and 1861, and you can hopefully spot the marriage below among several possibles.  Beatrice Keddell was wrongly indexed as Beatrice Kedde (now corrected).  Double check the reference numbers given on freebmd, one of them may be wrong which could mean, like me, the marriage you seek eludes you!

PS I didn't give up once I found the South Shields marriage - I stumbled on George Bell's transcriptions of St Hilda, the largest parish, and found the actual date and place of the Johnson marriage on this link http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/Transcriptions/DUR/MSSH1851.html

#2 Trick to help your family history

Match the marriage with the births

Here you can see marriages being matched for Olive M Skinner - you can't always be sure which one is which, but you can confirm things with the death indexes.  In this case, I found that my Olive married in Mitford, which I later proved from other sources.  What have you got to lose?