Guild Blog Challenge Post 4: Continuing with Norfolk records, search challenges, and other things....

In my last post, I wrote about extracting some Norfolk records from The Genealogist and commented that it would be useful to compare them to the records for Norfolk made available through some of the other providers.  So, since then, I have been taking a look at the records on Ancestry.

Or, to be more precise, I have been looking at the varying results returned, depending on the search terms used!

I often begin a search with fairly broad terms, so I began with just exact surname "Parry" and "Norfolk" as an exact keyword (since the county might not be the location of whatever event is being recorded.

Of course, such a broad search returned thousands of results (18,091, in case you're wondering 🙂), due to the inclusion of records for all the other places called "Norfolk".

When I changed the keyword to exact "Norfolk, England", that reduced the number of results to 6,138, as one might expect, by excluding all those "Norfolk"s, elsewhere in the world.  However, all but one of the Civil Registration indexes also ceased to be listed!  I don't know what makes the "All England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007" different from all the other "All England & Wales, Civil Registration......" Indexes, but clearly something does.

So I then switched to using "Norfolk, England" as an exact search in the location.  This had a few unexpected consequences as well - such as the inclusion of records for Bristol amongst the results!

Also several of the, specifically Norfolk, databases showed different results, as this comparison between the Keyword search and the Location search shows:

Using Keyword "Norfolk"

Using Location "Norfolk, England"

Interestingly, when accessing the detail from the keyword search, several of the databases then only showed the same number of results as were found through the location search:

Showing total results as 102, despite being accessed from the keyword link, which showed the total as 206

I am sure there are some very logical reasons as to why such differences occur (perhaps to do with the numbers of individual PARRYs mentioned in a particular database, as opposed to the number of entries eg a baptism with both parents listed might class as three PARRYs but as only one entry.)

But I think this demonstrates a couple of things - firstly, that it's worth trying a variety of search terms to see if they produce different results and, secondly (and perhaps more importantly for a One-Name Study), how careful we should be when quoting figures for our studies just based on index searching, if we don't fully understand what is being included.

Hopefully I shall get around to looking at some details for the individual entries for Norfolk soon!

In other news, ...
a couple of other databases have come to my attention, which will prove useful in the future (with apologies for the lack of thanks to those who posted the details about the databases originally, since I didn't note who they were).

The Digital Dictionary of Surnames in Germany* currently shows that PARRY has been found in their database "with a frequency of 33 telephone connections."  I was rather amused to see that this is more than the surname HENGLER, my only known German ancestral surname, which appears with a frequency of 28!  (Bearing my comment above in mind, I should add that I haven't investigated the site sufficiently to know whether "telephone connections" means individuals or directories.)

Dick Eastman posted about the BBC Radio Times as "another source of genealogy data"- it is indeed, with 8,453 references to "Parry".  I shall look forward to investigating those further, in order to add details to some individual's lives.

One database that was mentioned near the beginning of January, but which I hadn't commented about at the time, was the database of the "England's Immigrants 1330 - 1550 | Resident Aliens in the Late Middle Ages".  There's only one Parry in this - a Clement Parry, who originated in France and for whom there are letters of denization dated 7 May 1539.

There's no notes and no relationships listed for Clement so, without specific clues as to where I might easily find more information on him, this entry will be filed on the "back burner" for now.

Another database, the British Newspaper Archives, shows 1,722,385 results for Parry. So I certainly won't be doing general searches or extractions there!

FindMyPast last week added some Durham records, as well as "Britain, Royal and Imperial Calendars 1767-1973"  I did take a quick look at the calendars - there's 1268 results, which is more than I'd try collecting, for this sort of source anyway.  But I did click through to a couple of entries.

The first entry I looked at spanned across two pages so, an index entry stating:

"Imperial Calendar, 1851 Arthur F Knox Gore Bi Thomas Parry 1851 Great Britain"

turned out to be two entries, one for “Sligo, Col. Arthur F. Knox Gore” (a Lieutenant of the county) and, across on the next page, “Thomas Parry, D.D. Barbados and the Leeward Isles 1842 Coleridge, res”, a Colonial Bishop.

Another entry I checked was correctly showing just the Parry, despite him being one of four entries across a double page.

It is wonderful that such information is available online. I am also very grateful that FindMyPast highlight the place on the original page where the entry occurs - that certainly saves time and is something I wish some of the other databases had.

But I don't think it would achieve much for the Study, if I was to collect all the index entries from a database like this, as any such extraction will contain much irrelevant information and every entry is likely to need to be examined individually for accuracy.

The Durham records seem more straightforward, with 70 baptisms, 47 Marriages, and 57 Burials but, just like the Norfolk databases, will I find more that needs investigation once I try comparing the results to other sources?

Anyway, this post has been a slight "ramble" through the recent activities on the study.  

But I'm going to end with a "positive" for my own family history - not actually to do with the PARRYs, but just to remind everyone that it is well worth searching the surnames registered with the Guild of One Name Studies, to check if your names appear.  After seeing a question on Facebook, I have discovered that two of my surnames of interest, HAYNES and NAYLOR, are now both registered.

So I am looking forward to more collaboration with other Guild members.

* Sources
The Digital Dictionary of Surnames in Germany (DFD)
http://www.namenforschung.net/en/dfd/dictionary/list/

Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
https://blog.eogn.com/2020/01/21/bbc-radio-times-another-source-of-genealogy-data/

Genome BETA Radio Times 1923 - 2009
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/issues