Slipping through the net

[LukeJ]

Especially pre 1841 census, were almost everybody's birth, marriage and death recorded in local parishes..?
how many people are not on any records? I know that's a ridiculous statement to quantify
but for example if i'm looking for a Mary Jones, and there are only say 2 who are in that area that could possibly be a relative due to dates, etc...
Could there be potentially another 5 or 10 who lived in the area but let's just say were poor or for some reason never attended the local church and never
left a trace?
Just one of those things that bugs me when doing my family history..if i can make educated guesses on links, but are there potentially other people with the same
names who just weren't recorded on birth or marriage, if so its a bigger guess!

anyone have any thoughts about this?

[Bertieone]

There must be many that are not on various records, unless you find convincing and undeniable evidence of the people you seek on the records available, you're better off walking away.

You can always return later when more records may be found or become available on line.

[MaryA]

I did an exercise about a year or so ago to ascertain which RC registers were missing from Ancestry online, so that I could check each of them at the Record Office and see if a marriage was in one. These were not as early as those you are looking at, much later, however there were 22 RC church registers NOT online.

I imagine there wouldn't be as many as that pre 1841, but I believe it may be impossible to know which have been missed, C of E as well as RC.

[Blue70]

My concern about missing people is that with so much movement through Liverpool in the 19th century people could have gone elsewhere. The more common the name, the more difficult it is to prove that the person who was in Liverpool went to America, went to Australia, went back to Ireland, went back to Wales etc. The earlier records have less detail on baptisms, marriages and burials so it is more difficult to determine which one is the person you are looking for. Wills can help but not everyone had a probate record to help establish who their relations were. For me it's not so much slipping through the net as knowing what fish to go for


Blue

[MaryA]

Keep looking, try newspapers, try all sites you come across for foreign countries. One day a name will show up and a bit of research around it may just confirm that it's yours. Never give up has to be our motto, sometimes it takes years! Don't forget that the cemetery records will be upcoming as soon as they can transcribe them and hopefully that will make them easier to search.

[LukeJ]

that will be good.

its annoying. on the side of the family im looking into ive got a luke jones illegitimate son of a mary jones, theres only a few records of mary joneses in yorkshire then, and one fits the bill and has a father also called luke jones, 6 miles away. but it's only punt.