Common Problems....finding births entries
Finding Someone on a Census....
Most internet sites with data collections usually have very sophisticated search facilities enabling you to search using a variety of different criteria but they only as good as the information transcribed which is sometimes illegible or easily misread. If your sruggling to find someone make sure you run a search for all other known family members names. I once found my great grandmother wrongly transcribed as Bernard instead of Barbara. If I hadn't search for her brothers and sisters I would never have found her. On the original image she was clearly written as Barbara. A transcription of any document is only as good as someone elses interpretation of the image in front of them so do check the originals wherever possible.
If your still having problems you can search sensus records by address instead of name which is worth doing if you believe the family lived there for quite sometime. Alternatively if you know where someone worked in a domestic service capacity you may well find them listed on their employers census return.
A common problem can develope if you cannot narrow down your search radius for a birth and there are too many similar entries on the index. If this happens you may need to approach the problem from a different angle. If the person is deceased then try looking for them on the death index. If they died after 1969 their death certificate will have their date and place of birth recorded meaning you will know exactly where to look for them on the birth index. If they died before 1969 only their age at death will be recorded. Age at death is also recorded on the indexes so you may not need to order the death certifcate, simply subract their age at death from the year they died and that will bring your birth search radius down closer to a particular year.
Alernatively, if you know the person was married you could try to obtain their marriage certificate if you know the names of both parties incuding the maiden name. This is fairly easy if the marriage occured after 1911. The marriage certificate will give you the ages of the bride and groom at the time they were married. You then simply deduct their ages from the year the marriage occured and this will give you an approximate year of birth.
Common Problems....finding locations
If you are having trouble finding a set of records for a particular location then be aware that Parish and District names and boundaries have changed over time. Names can change when two Parishes or sub-districts are merged. Some times the boundarys of a particular district may have changed and no longer include the same sub-districts. Its worth checking old maps from the time period your looking at and comparing it with an up to date map and this will help you work out wether the names and boundaries of the area your looking for have changed. You may need to check records from other areas surrounding or nearby the location your looking for.
