Yes, I'm Finding More Ancestors!

Man, oh man, I am finding more and more of those elusive ancestors! I've been going through old English census returns over at Ancestry.com and finding an extra brother or sister for several of the families I am always trying to complete (they're never completed are they?) and I've been able to extend several branches of my lines a little further into the past, as well as bring some forward. Combining census records with the great info over at FreeBMD.com really helps to flesh out a family. Of course more work is needed to be done. Birth, marriage and death certificates need to be consulted.

Maybe I can find that missing will of my 4x-great-grandfather that is proving to be so elusive. Does anyone know more about land transfers in North Yorkshire in the early-to-mid-1800s? The son of my 4x-g-grandfather inherited the family farm, lived there all his life (raising 12 children -- 9 sons!) working about 100 acres and then passed the land on to his son (today the old farm house is a bed-and-breakfast -- I've just gotta visit there some day!).

Scottish Census Records

If you want to take a look at census records for Scotland, then the place you will want to start is at ScotlandsPeople. They will allow you to search the seven census returns for all of Scotland from 1841-1901, but at a cost.

Access to the census indexes costs 6 Great Britain Pounds (about $10.87 U.S. Dollars). And you'll need a credit card to make this payment.

For this fee, you will receive 30 "page credits" which are valid for up to 90 consecutive days. When you view a page of index results the cost is one credit, but each page contains up to 25 search results. So you will want to narrow your searches down as much as possible. If you are looking for John Smith, you will use up all your credits before you even have a chance to figure out which one is yours.

Viewing an image costs 5 credits (equivalent to 1 GBP). Your session begins when payment has been authorized and additional credits may be purchased in 6 GBP increments. The session will restart with each new credit purchase.

An Interesting Census Story

I found something interesting while looking at census returns for southern Ontario, Canada the other day. Apparently a census taker had to pay for a translator when he tried to record several families who spoke only gaelic!

In the census information notes provided by the hardworking agent of the government, he was forced to pay out of his own pocket to pay an individual to help him get the proper information from some relatively recent arrivals who spoke gaelic only. There's no word if the the poor guy was ever recompensated or not.