Tracing ancestors when two people have the same name

It happens all the time. You go searching merrily along and find your ancestor in every census, in the BMD (birth, marriage, and death) index, and you feel pretty proud of yourself. Then, wham! Suddenly SKS (Some Kind Soul in Internet-language) tells you the John SMITH you're so happy about is their relative, not yours at all. And then you scratch your head and wonder how it all went so wrong.

How to track two people who are about the same age

This advice uses an English example, but like most of my examples, I hope the lessons might be just as good for other countries.

It's not usually a big problem trying to distinguish between people with the same name but from different generations. The age difference makes it pretty easy to know if you've got the right ones.

But when there are two (or even more) people about the same age, with the same name, you have to unravel them carefully. If you want to do it without buying any birth, marriage or death certificates, you're probably going to have to work a little harder.

John CORKER, b. 1862 in Manchester, Lancashire, and his namesake born around the same time

The John CORKER I'm interested in was the son of William CORKER and Mary Ann (nee KNOWLES).

One problem I'm having is that I cannot find him in the 1871 census. This is important because he was young and the facts – his age, name, date and place of birth – are more likely to be correct because those events have a very good chance of being fresh within the memory of the person who gives the information to the census-taker.

Because it's proving difficult to find the family in 1871, I am going to have to look at 1881. I want to find "my" John CORKER and the one with the same name and similar place and date of birth, so I can start making notes of the points where they differ, and where they are the same. I want to build up a little checklist for telling them apart.

1911 England census

Today I'm going to leave the VERNELLs and SANDERS briefly and sniff around in the 1911 census for various families. Some are in my family, some aren't. I'm interested in them all, but the reasons vary.

Finding the 1911 UK census online

The website I'm using is 1911census.co.uk.

You can search for free, but to see the results you need to pay.

Another site I haven't tried yet is offering subscriptions to the 1911 census, in fact, they have every census from 1841 to 1911. It's findmypast.co.uk.

I've already purchased some credits and done a few searches in the 1911census.co.uk site and it worked very well.

A 1911 census search for Mary BUNTING nee KNOWLES formerly CORKER formerly BROWN formerly ROYLE

Yes, married four times and apparently outlived them all! This lady's name was Mary Ann KNOWLES until the first marriage, as indicated by the word "nee" (French for "born"). She married men whose surnames were, in order, CORKER, BROWN, ROYLE, and BUNTING. It's been quite the wild goose chase trying to track her down, because I had no idea she had any husbands after BROWN.

Without too much trouble, using her name and a birth date with not "Exact" but plus or minus 5 years for the date, there she is, in Salford.

Finding the address in the 1911 census

It's really easy to use the 1911 census site to get both the census form for the household and the cover page showing the address. There are clear boxes to check.

Although it's a little cheaper to see a transcript, I always go look at the original. Too many mistakes crop up in transcribing records. I want to see them for myself.

The cost: transcripts are 10 credits each, originals are 30 credits for the set of images (the household return, and the address page for the household, and the cover page showing the enumeration district details.

Credits: 6.95 pounds for 60 credits (12 pence per credit, good for 90 days) or
24.95 pounds for 280 credits (9 pence per credit, good for a year)

I paid for and downloaded the records I wanted to see for Mary Ann BUNTING and then I looked at them closely.

The census address page shows Mr. BROWN as head of the household, and the address as 52 Stowell Street, Salford.

I didn't know anything about England when I first started researching and had no clue where Salford was. It's part of Greater Manchester. If you live there, you will probably make a finer distinction than that, but the bottom line is, if you're looking for Salford, find Manchester city centre, and then look across the River Irwell to the west.


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Links to some interesting titles

THE GENERAL STRIKE IN SALFORD IN 1911

Haven't read it but it was the same year as the census. Must find out more about this strike.





In Search of Your British and Irish Roots: A Complete Guide to Tracing Your English, Welsh, Scottish, & Irish Ancestors

One of the first family history books I bought was by Angus Baxter and I found his advice very useful. I wonder if I still have his books. I should go back to basics and read what he had to say about conducting research.



More resources for Manchester and Salford history, from Amazon's catalogue