Working around those “to see more, join…..” messages!!
Thanks to Steve Morse One Step Searching web site it
is now easy to search census (and some other related information) databases
using multiple criteria, but some of his links still reference pay for use
sites which some of us decline to use
directly, mostly because there is yet to be a secure way of paying. That
said here are a few ways to refine the information to the point that you have
MOST of what you need and certainly enough to readily find it on census film
which is available in most cases at nominal charge from your LDS church Family
History Center.
Enter the family name without any first name, enter
the area to be searched without getting too specific. You may get a long list,
if it contains the name(s) you want narrow the area, you may have to go through
all the places in the pull down list to get the right one, continue to narrow
down the place until you are as far as you can go. After that try entering the
criteria in the enumeration district box (in the British census, check the
list), once you have found the district (or at any time) try using key words
(where that box is available) like son, daughter, wife, head, border or lodger
to find out the relationship. This will often bring you to a point where you
can put a family together WITHOUT having to go much further.
This method may vary a bit depending upon the database
and the volume of hits in the area, but the general idea can be used on most
databases where you are able to enter various search criteria but then they do
not reveal all the information without “joining”. It is not quick, particularly
if you are not on a high speed connection, but if you have patience you can
often find what you want or narrow it down considerably.
In the 1901 and 1911 Canadian Census it is important
that you narrow it down as much as possible because you can then go to the
government archives site (see my links page) and actually view the pages of the
census book BUT the pages are not indexed and so you may have to read each
entry on numerous pages to find what you want. This is still better than
ordering film, waiting for it to come in, booking a film reader and going
through the whole film! Even if you have to view film, knowing the enumeration
area as closely as possible can save much time and eye strain.
Found a list you want to save but don’t want all those
links to pay info embedded in the list? Try this……
Copy & paste to notepad, this will dump all the
formatting, lines etc. Then copy from the notepad to Word or other word
processing software and use the Edit / Find / Replace to replace all the link
words with nothing and with a little massaging you have a “clean” list!