Ancestry.co.uk

[Wendyf]

Interesting!

[Tizer]

Yes, and when you start dipping back beyond 1800 it's easy to forget how different life in England was at the time. That sank in for me when I posted that observation of a parish register baptism record which stated that the mother had `seven previous bastard children'. My first thought was that she must have been up to mischief with most of the men in the village but after more thought I realised there are other explanations. Perhaps she and a man had been happily living like husband and wife but never having bothered getting married, especially if it was when you had to pay a tax for it. Or they'd been married elsewhere but the local clergy didn't recognise the marriage. You were at the mercy of people in power in those days!

[Stanley]

"You were at the mercy of people in power in those days!"
I think the victims of the Post Office in the Horizon scandal would say that is still true!

[Tizer]

I'm surprised that Ancestry don't offer the 1921 census but apparently Find My Past does have it. I wonder why the difference?

[Wendyf]

I'm surprised that Ancestry don't offer the 1921 census but apparently Find My Past does have it. I wonder why the difference?

It's because the National Archives chose Findmypast to digitise and publish it. 3 years work!

[Tizer]

Thanks. I did a bit more googling and saw something saying Ancestry was working on its own 1921 data. Perhaps we'll see it in 3 years time!

Typically, I've been side tracked from trying to find my South African ancestors by the easier job of tracing those of my cousin's husband, Mark. All going well, mostly father's in Blackburn and mother's in Nottinghamshire. Then an odd record popped up and I find that in 1960 one of his mother's relatives got married in Lima, Peru - then she had a baby there in 1961. I could work out some of the Spanish on the certificates and the husband and wife were both from Blackburn. Mark's away at the moment and I'll interrogate him when he comes back!

[Tripps]

There's an 'add on' in Firefox which will translate from any language into English, even foreign character sets such as Cyrillc, Arabic, or Mandarin. Very impressive - you just highlight the text, and click on a link marked A and there it is in English. If the text is contained in a document, you may have to retype it, to be able to highlight it.

PS - Sorry just noticed that you have worked out some of the Spanish text, but the advice may be useful to others.

[Tizer]

Yes, it's always good to have the information. In this case we're lucky because the relative concerned recently got a holiday flat in Spain. Also communication is so easy these days that he can send a copy of the image to one of his new Spanish friends for translation. This crazy modern world does have some benefits!