ENG-HAM-PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT-L Archives

From: Ian Thirlwell <>
Subject: [PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT] if you can't find someone/a family in a census
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2007 20:31:59 +0100

Occasionally it happens that no matter what combination of alternative
name spellings etc a person just won't be found in a census. If this is
the case it is worth checking if the entries are in fact missing. You
can do this on the National Archives web site. Go to the catalog and in
the Word or Phrase field type the place name, in the Department/Series
code type the census code, eg RG 9 for 1861, then search. You should get
back one or more hits (depending on whether the name is used in several
places/counties I imagine) with information indicating whether the place
you are looking for is missing or not.
After a few hours looking for a family who were in 1851 and 1871 in the
same place and failing to find them in 1861, I did just such a check and
found that the place, a hamlet/township in this case, was missing.
Ancestry does list missing piece numbers but not the placenames. You can
also search the catalog using the piece number to check whether places
are missing or not.
Ian Thirlwell

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• [PORTSMOUTH-GOSPORT] if you can't find someone/a family in a census by Ian Thirlwell <>