Lost Cousins newsletter - late Jan 2022
 

I don't understand what he means by the bit in brackets at the end of this, regarding the 1921 census: The preview shows the forenames of up to three members of the household, but by specifying one of these as Other household member (at the bottom of the search form) in a search you may be able to confirm the identity of more members of the household (although because of the way the search works it’s not a foolproof method) How is it not foolproof? I can always figure out who all the other members of the household are? Apart from when it says X is the only person there.

His method isn't foolproof because he's not doing it right!

Following his rather vague instructions, if you searched for Josephine Higginbotham and when you found her and hovered over the preview you saw that Mary lived in the same house, you would then enter Mary Higginbotham in the Other boxes. But if it turned out Mary's surname was Sidebottom then you would have got nowhere and you might even conjour up another household altogether, though Josephine Higginbotham would probably be missing from the results if you brought up a different houseohold! (I note he doesn't actually say to use the Other boxes having removed the original search name from the normal 'Who' boxes, but I guess he thinks that's obvious, but we know it wouldn't be to everyone).

Generally I put the name of the person I've already found into the Other boxes, having removed their name from the 'Who' boxes at the top of the Advanced search screen and then make further restrictions like adding the parish name where they were living and moving the radio button for Search radius to Exact.

If, when I look at the results, I think I may have accidentally found more than one household I would take any more unusual names that have appeared in the results - put them in Other and see if my original person appeared in the results list. I actually usually do that anyway (try different people in Other), even if I think I'm sure I have the right people in my results list.

There's loads of other things you can do if you think the results are not 'right' or not restricted enough (ie if you think FMP have had a wobble or if you are looking for Jones in North Wales)!

Oh, right, of course, he is saying you have to put those names (the other members) in, and not then continue by doing a further search, leaving the name fields blank, like we would.

Yes, maybe he felt by offering up too many suggestions he would be encouraging people not to pay for the image.

Having said that, previously I have read some of his other searching techniques and often thought they didn't go far enough!!