Family History research

Does anyone know if there are census records in existence for Foleshill and Coventry between the years of 1801 to 1831? I know that only those from 1841 to 1911 are generally available, but I wondered if the earlier records can be viewed.

I don't think you are going to have much success according to this website:- http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~alan/family/N-EarlyCensuses.html "The 1801 census asked local officials to provide information on the number of inhabited and uninhabited houses in the parish and how many families occupied them; the number of people in the parish and their employment; and numbers of baptisms, burials and marriages in the previous 100 years. A similar format was followed for the censuses of 1811, 1821 and 1831, with the addition of further questions. Most of the early returns for 1801-1831 were destroyed, only statistical summeries being published. Those few returns that survive are now usually in the local County Record Office. The returns usually only name the householder and list the number of people in the house, although occasionally the whole population is listed."

Morning all! I've been through the site a lot and people are very helpful about finding information, and sometimes family history, when requested by others. Could I just ask that, if that is done for you, you respond and acknowledge those discoveries? This doesn't always happen which can leave the person who has put in the effort a bit frustrated! Having said that, could I once again thank all of you have helped me in my researches?

You are so right, Anne, my sentiments exactly, if people have put in time and effort it's only right to be recognised. Being thanked is not a big deal, so easy and means so much. You take care. Colin

I don't know whether anyone of your members do genealogy as a hobby and use findmypast but they've changed their website, and now it's gone from one of the best sites to the worst in one fell swoop! Everyone on FB is talking about it! They are no longer answering our complaints, it crashes, goes slow, I can no longer see original 1911 census, they've made a right pigs ear of it! I've just scored them on Trustpilot, if I could have given them a "0" I would have!!!!

Hi ang1950, oh you are so right! I have just checked and the new format is horrible!! It's cumbersome and slow and not user-friendly at all. Why on earth change something that worked so well. I have a few month's subscription left, if they haven't reverted to the old regime by then, I shall cancel mine. Such a shame.

I use it alongside Ancestry so like you said, I will monitor things as I have until October but hope that they do something about it as I only research on my iPad and if I can't see the actual census, well there's not much point in having it!

Go onto Trustpilot and score them as they've been deleting negative comments!!!!! Naughty!

I do my genealogy in fits and starts and have got lots of information from the Ancestry site. Presently trying to write episodes from my own childhood as I have children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild to pass the stories on to. I don't suppose they will hold much interest to them until they have a history of their own.

Pixrobin - I am doing the same with the genealogy, and have found out huge amounts about my family from various sources. I have written over 80,000 words so far on my more recent family history and am keeping going because I love to do it and it interests me. My grown up children seem to like to read what I find and write, but maybe in a hundred years time, one of my descendants might run across these jottings and find them really interesting. Who knows?

Hi all & Hi to you David "Thoughts" on what people may find about us, living now are mind blowing, almost. Who knows what the medium of information will be in a hundred years time? Maybe technology will be recording our "thoughts", or even our entire minds. Imagine telling someone living one hundred years ago, that we will be sat in our lounges, conversing, sharing pictures & data, with every person living on our planet (that has access to the internet) in an instant! A lady from Australia was telling me about where she meets for shopping, & I was able to zoom in to see where she was at the time. Hey, I do not have a passport nowadays! Could this be the end of the age of words? Gosh! ps Oh by the way Dreamtime, will you collect my order in Perth, the next time you go for coffee!!!! Oh, & please bring some fish & chips in! Edited by member, 5th Apr 2014 1:15 pm

Coming right up Philip, would you like butties with that ?

I used to subscribe to both Find My Past and Ancestry, but this year haven't bothered to renew the subscription on the former as Ancestry seems now to have all the information I need. There is a very useful website called "Lost Cousins" which publishes a newsletter which includes information about various genealogy websites and any special offers and discounts they may have.

I 'chat' with a friend in South Island NZ every evening over Skype. We met on a photographic forum a few years ago. Sometimes our friend from Scotland joins us so, as she is profoundly deaf, we type our messages rather than using a video link. One time I was visiting our Scottish friend and I had my smart phone with me. We were on the road between Lanark and Hamilton at night and I connected to New Zealand. Told him the villages we were passing through. His response was "Get George (our friend's hubby) to flash his lights and I'll find you on Google Earth." Not current reality of course but no doubt it isn't that far away. Kip and I have the ability to regularly make each other laugh, but we also discuss social history, photography, computing. What is terrific is, if we are not sure of some fact or other, we have much of the world's knowledge at our fingertips. His forebears are from the area around Scarborough and his branch emigrated in the early 19th century boarding the boat at Gravesend. As I used to live in Gravesend I was able to send him pictures of the riverside where they departed from. We all make the world a much smaller place than it was just 50 years ago.

I recommend trying familysearch.org rather than either findmypast or ancestry. For one thing it's free, but depending on what part of the world your interest lies, it often has better coverage. And if you store your family tree there it won't be removed when you no longer subscribe, future generations will benefit from your research without having to pay them to see what you provided for free. Their granite mountain storage facility should enable your family history information to survive even a nuclear war! Edited by member, 5th Apr 2014 3:55 pm