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

Guild Blog Challenge Post 3: The state of the study. And some Norfolk records.

Since I'm restarting research on the PARRY study after several years of relative inaction, I've been thinking about where the study is at, and what I want to achieve this year.  In particular the question I've been asking myself is, "Where do I start?"!

Part of the reason for the lack of progress over the last few years was that available time became short just as the study required some major time investment:

• My ISP had changed hands and no longer supported personal websites.  Uploading the site elsewhere 'as is' was a possibility.  However, with the availability of the Members' Websites Project, it seemed a better option for the PARRY information to be put online there.  But that required a website re-write, since I wanted to remove the 'non-study' portions.
• I'd decided to change my system of computer filing, so as to reflect the "seven pillars" approach to one-name studies, since that would make it easier for someone else to understand what's been done, as and when I can no longer conduct the study.  That required a re-organisation of many computer files, as well as devising a more systematic approach for how data gets integrated into the study.
• When I began researching, less information was available on the internet and what there was occasionally 'disappeared'.  This meant sources were often printed out, to come back to 'later', rather than being entered into a database at the time. Other documents, such as marriage challenge results, whilst always gratefully received, added to the "needs transcription" pile.  So there is now a quantity of paperwork which either needs scanning, transcribing, or I need to return to the original entry online (eg for census sheets printed whilst answering a query) and enter the details properly.

So, these major tasks are still outstanding. 

I was thinking about all this when Melody shared a link in the Guild Blogging Challenge for "The Genealogy Blog Party" at https://mydescendantsancestors.com/2020/01/genealogy-blog-party-organize.html?

Although I don't intend to join the party, this month's topic of "organise and prioritise" is clearly relevant for me. 

Most of us have probably heard a version of the quote, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” and I have long since been aware of the importance of planning before tackling a project - but I've still come to the conclusion that I need to improve my concept of what "planning" involves.

There are so many potential (and very interesting) aspects of the one-name study to pursue that it becomes easy to make 'plans' about what I 'can' do, or 'should' do - like "collect this data" and "analyse that data", "draw conclusions from all the data" and "publish the results" …….(one-namers can no doubt fill in the rest :-) ) 

But I came across a quote by Bill Copeland that made me realise I was missing important aspects of planning: “The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score.”

So, translating all those 'plans' from just 'good intentions' to achievable, and then achieved, goals is what is required.  It's no good having a goal to "get the PARRY website back online", if I don't then consider what specific steps are necessary to achieve that - and then allocate some time to actually do them!  

There is a lot to be done with the study, but I need to accept that:

1.) PARRY is a fairly high frequency surname, so I will never accomplish everything.

2.) Life will get in the way at times. 
3.) Every little bit helps.

So, I need to prioritise the most important aspects, and then focus on achieving something towards those each day. 

While I think more about how to tackle the three 'big issues', it probably doesn't matter so much whether what I achieve is publicising the study or publishing results (as this Blog Challenge is helping me to do), or another aspect, such as moving some computer files to the new system, or scanning a few documents - or even just collecting some new data - as long as I am actually doing some research, that will be progress.

So, in that vein, I took a look at the emails received last Friday from FindMyPast and The Genealogist regarding their new releases.

FindMyPast had some British Army Service records and Kent parish records.  Both of those are likely to have quite a few PARRYs in, so I checked out the Genealogist's new records instead, which were for Norfolk.  Since Norfolk is a long way from Wales, I didn't expect there to be many PARRYs there.

Having initially used the phonetic search for births, I switched to an exact search instead - 74 records is a bit more manageable than 523!  I stuck with exact searches for the marriages and deaths as well, which gave me 73 marriages and  43 deaths.  Although it is possible that using an exact search means I miss some entries (eg any PARREYs), the overwhelming numbers of PERRYs make it impractical to extract all similar surnames.  I shall look for variants through individual searches, if I should discover specific people are missing, or it seems as if there are gaps in the information I have collected.

I had hoped to include more details about the results in this post - but, as is often the way, things soon became more time-consuming.  Some of the entries appear to be duplicated, so the originals need checking to see why.  At least two entries for spouses of PARRYs have variations to their names between the marriage banns and the marriage itself, ie Lucy Toynbee Bender vs Lucy Joynbee Rinder, and John Wade Ream vs John Wade Reeve.  Whilst not difficult to check, that checking all adds to the time needed to analyse the data.

There are other entries that probably relate to the same individual which are spelt differently, for example, these four different spellings:

William Bulkeley PARRY

William Bulkley PARRY

William Balkeley PARRY

William Bulkly PARRY

This one raises an issue I remember considering when I first started my one-name study and was attempting to match entries across different years of early census transcriptions - should I include "standardised name" columns for all entries, in all databases, to make it easier to match up potential entries relating to the same person?  And, if I do that for names, what about parishes of birth etc, using a standard gazetteer spelling for all places?  It won't help where the people themselves vary their birthplaces, but would certainly help with mistranscriptions (and is probably necessary if I want to do any mapping of births etc).

I wonder what other one-namers, particularly those with large studies, think about this?

Anyway, it is clear that, before I can publish any conclusions on the Norfolk records, I need to do some further research to confirm the accuracy of the data.  It will also be useful to compare what Norfolk records have been made available by the other data providers, as well, since I see Ancestry have several relevant databases, such as "All Norfolk, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812" as well as "Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940".

Oh well, I guess that does give me an obvious topic for another blog post!