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Archiver > ABERDEEN > 2003-07 > 1058951272


From: Gavin Bell <>
Subject: Re:[ABERDEEN] "Interests" (MURRAY & COUTTS)
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 10:07:52 +0100


"William Baird" wrote:

> William MURRAY born Aberchirder or Banff 18 January 1863

> I have information on his later life and descendents which I will
> gladly share with anyone interested but need to know where he was and
> who he was living with at the 1871 census. Can SKS help please?

> John COUTTS born Corskie parish of Cluny Aberdeenshire 17 July 1866
> but again I need to know family details from the 1871 census. If
> anyone has access to it I shall be happy to pay the cost of both these
> enquiries.

If you knew the size of the task, you might be less keen on offering to
pay for the information! The only fully-indexed Censuses are 1881, 1891
and 1901. There is an ongoing project being carried out by the various
Family History Societies in Scotland to index the 1851. And indexes for
most of 1861 for Banffshire is held by Aberdeen and Northeast Scotland
FHS. But 1871 is the Cinderella. So, unless you know with some
certainty what parishes your targets were in, finding them would involve
a slow, laborious process of reading through the entire Enumeration off
microfilm.

It's also not quite clear what information you might hope to get from
the Census that you would not get from their entries in the Register of
Births. Remember that the Census is simply a "snapshot" - it records
(or attempts to) who was in the house on Census night. It does not tell
us anything about family members who might, for one reason or another,
be away from home.


Gavin Bell


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