Margaret McDonald/Meldrum

[Jean Jeanie]

Can anyone explain this to me?

Looked for Margaret M*cDonald/Meldrum died 1862 and is buried in Cromdale, which can either me Moray or Inverness.

Looked first in Moray - no hits. Then Inverness - no hits.

Tried all counties. Only one hit and its her!!! District Cromdale, County Moray Inverness.

I was lucky as there was only one. In the past when I have looked for my McDonalds, the maiden name has been very common e.g. Grant/Fraser etc or not available and I have spent lots of money on wrong hits, looking only in Moray and Inverness. To look for them "everywhere" is no good, normally, as the name is too common.

Jean

Edited - apologies, in my haste I supplied the wrong maiden name. It is Meldrum (I had put Cumming as the maiden name initially)

[Tracey]

Probably for the same reason as when you look up a parent on the census and dont find them but then put the childrens info in and DA DA ....there they are .....same info but you have to go throught the whole list to find them ? asking the same sort of question as you but just adding to the list !

[Jean Jeanie]

Hi Tracey

I've e mailed SP about this. It really concerns me when I see how much I've spent looking for McDonalds in Cromdale Moray/Inverness and not getting anywhere fast. I have looked at a lot in neighbouring parishes, just in case they'd moved. However the ones I am looking for now are buried in Cromdale so I'm assuming they died there. I have 3 with the year of death from the lair records. One is a Mary McDonald. She wasn't to be found in Moray or Inverness. There were 5 pages of Mary McDonalds searching for her everywhere (Such common first and last names) Think I'll save what credits I have left and see if SP can work out what is going on.

It's a shame when you have an actual year to search in and still can't find them!!!

Jean

[Jean Jeanie]

Not a happy bunny

The money I've wasted checking Moray and Inverness

Here is the reply from SP.

Jean,

I have checked out the searches you are concerned with and you are correct.
Searching all districts finds the correct record but searching the
'counties' of Inverness or Moray shows nothing. This is because CROMDALE is
not listed as specifically in either Inverness or Moray but as sort of
related to them. If you do the search, leaving the 'County' field as 'All
records' and the district as CROMDALE then you will find the record. This is
an unfortunate result of the way the indexing is organised and affects other
similar areas. For example there is some confusion over Kinross because it
has not always been part of Perth and Kinross and historically some records
are recorded as FIFE. This is an issue that the Registry Office are aware
of.
Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you and good luck with the rest
of your research.

Tried 2 searches, where I have a year of birth, just clicking on Cromdale, and the result was a big fat zero.

Looks like I'll have to rethink my whole searching routine.

Jean

[AndrewP]

I had a similar response from SP (and GROS were involved) regarding West Calder. Until 1975, West Calder was in Midlothian. Then along came local government reorganisation, and West Calder (along with Mid Calder, East Calder and Kirknewton) moved into West Lothian. If you search for West Calder Records on SP, you need to search under West Lothian.

The poor reply that I got was that "people know West Calder is in West Lothian nowadays, so that is where they are more likely to look for it". I disagree as for the time period that SP offers, West Calder and the others listed above were in Midlothian, so surely that is where they should be listed for searching.

Unless they have made any changes, there was a worse anomaly in their indexing. In the 1871 and 1891 censuses, West Calder was listed as West Lothian, but in the 1901 census it was listed under Midlothian. The boundaries never moved in that era.

If that is their way of thinking, then surely the best solution is for places like West Calder to show up under both counties. The same logic could be applied to Cromdale - make it come up in both counties.

All the best,

Andrew Paterson

[Jean Jeanie]

Hello Andrew

I have e mailed them again and pointed out that I am not very happy.

It appears that I now have to look in "no county" Cromdale, first and if not successful then I have to look in the counties of Moray and Inverness for a nearby parish. Could be 3 credits every time before I even look at an image. Looking in all counties first is a possibility, but again, unless the dates etc can be really narrowed down, there are far too many names to look at.(sometimes 100's)

I have enough trouble with the common names of McDonald, Fraser etc without having to "fudge" the search system.

Just had a quick look in previous searches and found 2 straight away where I had looked for deaths. The dates had been narrowed down quite well from census information and the d.o.d. of the wife showing that she was a widow. I had looked in Moray only and none showed in Cromdale. I therefore viewed the rest, thinking the deaths had occurred outside Cromdale and found nothing. I have just looked for one again using SP's suggestion of no county and Cromdale only and there is one there. I'm holding off paying to view the image - just in case.

Jean

[DavidWW]

According to what the User Group were promised was going to be the case after many such split counties and moving counties, it should be the situation in such a case that a district is included in the list for both counties from about 2 years ago.

I'm therefore more than a bit concerned that there should still be such situations , and this and a request for the full listing of other districts referred to as not yet being sorted is going to go on the agenda for the next User Group meeting.

David

[Jean Jeanie]

David

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Incidentally I have not received a reply from SP today

Jean

[DavidWW]

I didn't have the time the other day to dig into this........

Firstly the TS reply ........

" have checked out the searches you are concerned with and you are correct.
Searching all districts finds the correct record but searching the
'counties' of Inverness or Moray shows nothing. This is because CROMDALE is not listed as specifically in either Inverness or Moray but as sort of related to them. If you do the search, leaving the 'County' field as 'All records' and the district as CROMDALE then you will find the record. This is an unfortunate result of the way the indexing is organised and affects other similar areas. For example there is some confusion over Kinross because it has not always been part of Perth and Kinross and historically some records are recorded as FIFE. This is an issue that the Registry Office are aware of.
Sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you and good luck with the rest of your research. "

Rather confusing, most especially "This is because CROMDALE is not listed as specifically in either Inverness or Moray but as sort of related to them." - what on earth does "sort of related to them" mean?

And the crunch, - I've just checked the lists of districts that come up when Inverness on its own and then Moray on its own are selected, and Cromdale is shown in both lists for BMDs !!, - as should be the case following substantial work put in by GROS to identify such instances and include them in both county registration district lists.

An interesting email will now be composed to SP!

David

[DavidWW]

Very prompt reply received to email to SoL/TS admitting that the response to Jean Jeanie was incorrect, and that the search engine should work in the way that I described; also admitting that this isn't at the moment always consistent for all registration districts where there is such a problem, but commenting that an upgrade shortly should deal with this.

On top of that there will be a list somewhere in the Help section of such potentially problematic RDs .

David

[Jean Jeanie]

With the help of DWW the problem has been resolved. There was an indexing problem that was fixed overnight and Cromdale appeared in my previous searches the following day.

Scotlandspeople have refunded all the credits I used on my fruitless searches (130 !!!)

They have also given me until Xmas to use them

I was beginning to think that a lot of my relies had been abducted by aliens, but they were only hiding

A happy result

Jean

[DavidWW]

With the help of DWW the problem has been resolved. There was an indexing problem that was fixed overnight and Cromdale appeared in my previous searches the following day.

Scotlandspeople have refunded all the credits I used on my fruitless searches (130 !!!)

They have also given me until Xmas to use them

I was beginning to think that a lot of my relies had been abducted by aliens, but they were only hiding

A happy result

Jean

Whey-hey

A real result

All credit to SoL/SP for this outcome.

David

PS As yet I have not come across a situation where it can be demonstrated that alien abductions via flying saucers can be fully demonstrated, with appropriate proof, to be the reason for the absence of matching BMD and census records, - but I'm always open to persuasion
dww

[DavidWW]

Just in case there is any doubt on the part of any member of TS, please let me make it very clear that, as a member of the GROS ScotlandsPeople User Group, based on posts on this discussion group, as do other members of the SP UG, I frequently refer problems and matters raised to the executives of ScotlandonLine, the GROS contractor for ScotlandsPeople,and occasionally to GROS.

Sometimes. in fact most often, this reference is not made public, as that wouldn't always necessarily assist the situation. On accasion, however, when there is a spectacular outcome such as above, then I see no problem in publicising the outcome.

That is not to say that I and other UG members aren't working away in the background with the aim of achieving similar outcomes for any other registered members of ScotlandsPeople.

Any registered member of TalkingScot, or any Guest is most welcome to contact me or other SPUG members who are active contributors to TalkingScot publicly on this discussion group or via our private email addresses, - available on TS, - in connection with problems that they have or believe that they have with ScotlandsPeople, and their queries / problems will receive appropriate attention.

Should they not choose to do so, then that is unfortunate.

Sometimes the outcome will be announced on the DG, sometimes, for a range of different reasons, it may not !!

David