Dear Maggi,
One problem with the otherwise great online resources we have is the spelling
variants/transcription error problem previously mentioned in emails to Rootsweb lists.
Also, Ancestry has some gaps, I believe - I think part of Birkenhead is missing, or at
least was?
Soundex searches are one thing but if the transcriber has completely got it wrong
that's quite another thing - one of my ancestor's middle names in the 1911 Dublin
census was Sch?t?b?rg or something (but they had a facility to point out errors!).
I know how difficult it is as I was looking for a farm called "Zolum",
Aberdaron, until a relation realised it was "Ystum" - and now, looking at the
entry, I can see it clearly.
I wonder if you need to do a Rusco(e)(w), Rasco(e)(w), Rosco(e)(w) and, even, Kusco(e)(w),
Kasco(e)(w) &c search? If the handwriting were particularly difficult, I suppose that
we could be looking at anything!
The other thing is the mobility of our ancestors - they weren't all stuck down (sadly
for us now) in some bucolic Eden but were often surprisingly mobile, even before canals
and trains, and not necessarily just the upper echelons of society.
I used to have a handbook of commonly-mistranscribed letters in various periods (like
everything else it is hard to pin down when needed!). There might be something online?
Yours,
Ian
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