Starting to Build a Baseline

Unfortunately I've not had as much free time as I'd hoped for this week but I did manage to get a couple of things done.

The first was identifying how many STEERS and STEARS births, marriages and deaths were registered. I did this using FreeBMD's "download" function. Once I downloaded the data I moved it into a spreadsheet and tidied it up by separating the data into the following headings

• Year 
• Quarter 
• Surname 
• Forename 
• Mother's Maiden Name (births after 1911), Spouses Surname (Marriage), Age at Death / Date of Birth 
• Registration District 
• Volume 
• Number 

The thing I have to do next is double check each entry against the images of the GRO register. I am using Ancestry to do this, but you are able to view images from FreeBMD.

I am going to use the Births extraction to create a "Master Spreadsheet". Each person will be given an ID number and this will be used to track the individual through the different records.

For STEERS births there are 1689 individuals, for STEARS there are 513.

I've decided against extracting the STEER and STEERE entries for the moment as the numbers are considerably larger and I don't want to spend all my time double-checking GRO details.

The other thing I have done is look at the entries for STEERS and STEARS in the UK and Ireland Census returns. The websites used were Family Search, Find My Past, Ancestry, Scotlands People, and the National Archives of Ireland (1901 and 1911). Each website gave different numbers and I believe this is due to the transcriptions so to demonstrate numbers I'll be using the highest number.

STEERS

• 1841 England & Wales Census - 359 (FMP) 
• 1851 England & Wales Census - 361 (Ancestry) 
• 1861 England & Wales Census - 429 (Ancestry) 
• 1861 Scotland Census - 1 (Scotlands People) 
• 1871 England & Wales Census - 451 (Ancestry) 
• 1871 Scotland Census - 6 (Scotlands People) 
• 1881 England & Wales Census - 571 (Ancestry) 
• 1881 Scotland Census - 4 (Scotlands People) 
• 1891 England & Wales Census - 626 (Ancestry) 
• 1901 England & Wales Census - 687 (Family Search & FMP) 
• 1901 Scotland Census - 2 (Scotlands People) 
• 1901 Ireland Census - 17 (Nat. Arc. Ireland) 
• 1911 England & Wales Census - 755 (FMP) 
• 1911 Scotland Census - 4 (Scotlands People) 
• 1911 Ireland Census - 4 (Nat. Arc. Ireland) 

STEARS

• 1841 England & Wales Census - 138 (Ancestry) 
• 1841 Scotland Census - 5 (Scotlands People) 
• 1851 England & Wales Census - 205 (Ancestry) 
• 1861 England & Wales Census - 200 (FMP) 
• 1871 England & Wales Census - 170 (Ancestry) 
• 1871 Scotland Census - 1 (Scotlands People) 
• 1881 England & Wales Census - 212 (Ancestry, Family Search & FMP) 
• 1891 England & Wales Census - 208 (Family Search & FMP) 
• 1901 England & Wales Census - 350 (Ancestry) 
• 1911 England & Wales Census - 289 (FMP) 
• 1911 Scotland Census - 4 (Scotlands People) 
• 1911 Ireland Census - 4 (Nat. Arc. Ireland) 

The plan is that after I've identified all the individuals from the GRO index I'll look for them in the census after they were born. This will enable me to start building trees.

The final thing I managed to do this week was get myself a Mentor at the Guild. So I'll not be bumbling along so much alone; I just hope I don't drive her nuts!