The virtue of Browsing

[Phoenix]

I was looking for the marriage of John Hazard in Barford St Martin in 1769. He married by licence, and FindMy Past has useful detail: https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcr...5%2F1&tab=this
John was a widowed tailor and his bride to be was Sarah Steevens, aged 23


I couldn't find him on Ancestry, but felt he ought to be there. So I browsed.

Here is the entry: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/co...=successSource


It's indexed as John Hicks and Sarah Bravere. John Hicks and Sarah BRAZIER actually married 31 October 1769 in another parish.


The records combine banns and marriage, so the same entry has the marriage by licence of John Hazard and Sarah Stevens on 24 December 1769.



Clerics don't make life easy for us!

[Olde Crone]

Can't remember exactly, but in a parish teeming with Green surnames for the best part of 400 years, the cleric suddenly and very clearly wrote GUBBIN instead of Green. I would never have found this other than by browsing.

OC

[Phoenix]

I think that clerks hurriedly wrote down entries on scraps of paper. Just before the Bishop's representative arrived, they would make a fair copy in their best handwriting. Some scraps got lost, others were entered out of order, and others were so unintelligible that they were mistranscribed.

[Janet]

Yup, it took walking through the streets of Reading, Pennsylvania on the 1910 census to discover Annie E. Hiestand camouflaged as Rennie E Kiostanl along with the rest of the "Kiostanl" family. At least they're easy to find again. No other family in the world is indexed as Kiostanl.

[marquette]

Before Ancestry had indexed the parish registers of Rotherhithe Surrey, I browsed through them. Stuck into the first few pages was a long story about someone who needed proof of birth or baptism. It was very interesting but I did not note down any details as it did not relate to my family.
Now, I wish I had.