Elizabeth Smith b. Aberdeen

lorrainemc · Post by **lorrainemc** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:04 am

Hi Lesley, No no, I'm not looking for freebees that is not what I am about. When you and jean mentioned the RAOK I just thought you might be able to help me asI have a few things I desperately need looking up. So I suppose my earlier post

I would imagine that it would be possible to find someone willing to spend a wee bit of their time in Park Circus doing a couple of look ups a favour, but as we all know, that one look up tends to 'borrow another' and I doubt that a RAOGK giver would be prepared to spend a couple of hours looking for my rellies or anyone elses, when they have paid good money to search for their own, whereas scotfamtree do look ups and only charge for what they find.

again kicks in. My 'difficult bride has the name Elizabeth Smith born Aberdeen 5/4/1891 to parents John Smith and Jane Collie. I was hoping to find if, when and to whom Elizabeth married and of any subsequent children, but as there are 77 marriages in the Aberdeen area alone(and I don't even know IF she married or WHERE) then this is an impossible task without a physical search-but thanks for your reply anyway. I'll give scotfamtree this task,(I'm sure they'll love me for it. LOL)

Thanks again
Lorraine

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 6:08 am

Hi lorraine

I usually search for deaths before marriages especially in the case where the mum is dead shortly after the birth. Since your Elizabeth isn't with her father and his new family in 1901 it's even more of a telling sign that she probably didn't survive infancy. If you search for her death using the same name that her birth is registered with you'll find it easily right in the parish where you'd expect her to be. Assuming you have already done all the background searching on her family then it will only take you a few more credits on SP to have the information you seek.

Hope this helps point you in the right direction!

Best wishes
Jean

lorrainemc · Post by **lorrainemc** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 10:25 am

Hello Jean, thank you for your reply. I had actually looked for her death but couldn't find it?? I haven't even found a birth for her on sp. I found her on the 1891 census, 3hrs old. When I found that the mother haddied and the father remarried, I assumed that Elizabeth would probably have been 'farmed out' to a relative, although I could find no trace of her on the 1901 butwith her name being Smith? I'll have anoher look at it.

thanks again
Lorraine

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 12:54 pm

Hi lorraine

Since you knew her exact date of birth then I just assumed you already had that info. Time for you to learn the vital importance of wildcards in performing online searches on SP I guess. A technique that won't help you a bit on the DIGROS system I understand but enormously beneficial for distance researching. Look at the name ELIZABAETH and imagine all the possible spellings, mis-spellings, nicknames, and derivations and then try and come up with what I like to call "shorhand" that will cover as many of those variables in one compact term. And don't forget that SP allows a leading wildcard which sadly Ancestry and others do not!! It's helpful to make a list just so you can see where to optimally use a wildcard symbol...

ELIZABETH
ELISABETH
ELIZBETH
ELISBETH
ELISA
ELIZA
ELSPET
ELSIE
LISBET
LIZBET
BETSY
LIZZIE
LIZ

THose are the ones that immediately pop into my head but there may be others.

Glad to have been able to lend a hand...I'll leave the thrill of the search and discovery up to you. I actually tried to find your post on the other forum just so they wouldn't spend time duplicating effort but was unable to find it.

Best wishes
Jean

lorrainemc · Post by **lorrainemc** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:15 pm

Thank you for your reply jean. I haven't posted on the other site with tihs because of the name smith but I was going to ask them to do a look up for me. I've looked at two dcs for Elizabeth Smiths between 1891 and 1901 but they weren't her,, theres only two of them, they had the wrong parents but i never thought of using Elisabeth or a varaition. i also looked at the first list of deaths on sp with the mothers surname Collie but none of them seem to fit either and these Elizabeths all died later in life. I'm assuming her dob to be 5/4/1891 as she was listed as 3 days old on the census and that ws the day it was done. I'll have another look at the different ways of spelling Elizabeth

Thank you

Lorraine

JustJean · Post by **JustJean** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 1:25 pm

Hi Lorraine

You should have her in no time! Please feel free to ask further questions if you get stuck!!

Best wishes
Jean

lorrainemc · Post by **lorrainemc** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:37 pm

Thank you very much jean. I found her under the name Lizzie. She died at 20months old.
And because of your tip I tried to find her birth using Lizzie and I found it. I thought it would have been Elizabeth as thats what was on the census. Just show you. Thanks again.

Lorraine

Post by **AndrewP** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:41 pm

I have read that the registrars were given a list of "proper" names and these were the ones that parents were encouraged register the children by. So, on birth certificates, there is more chance of you finding Elizabeth/Elisabeth, but on censuses, and to some extent the marriage and death certificates, it was often the name that was used at home that was given (Lizzie, Betsy etc.). So, I would recommend looking for the "proper" name for births. On the other hand, parents could choose to register the shorter name - the registrar couldn't enforce the use of the "proper" name.

All the best,

Andrew

Montrose Budie · Post by **Montrose Budie** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:58 pm

As Andrew points out another one that can confound the inexperienced researcher is ' Bessie ' and variants. A good book on Scottish given names that lists all such variants is an essential research tool.

The same comments apply to a long list of Scottish given names ! NB this is not including well known pairs of cognates that can't always be handled via wildcards, most often male.

Normally, careful use of wildcards, including the fact that ScotlandsPeople assumes that there is a wildcard at the end of a given name - i.e. searching on ' anyname ' will be treated as ' anyname* ' , - can solve the problem.

For instance ' *li*e ' for Eli[z/s]beth, Lizzie and whatever else fits that search term.

And remember as well that parents might well use the 'recommended' version for the birth registration, but alternatives may be used later in the census, and M & D registrations.

mb

Post by **paddyscar** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 6:01 pm

Not to mention, that her given name could have been a Scottish equivilent of Elizabeth, such as Elspeth!

Paddyscar