Why do I see duplicate listings of the same ancestor?
How do I narrow my search?When you start searching a census return and you’ve got a fairly common ancestral name, John Smith, for example, you are going to get thousands upon thousands of results. You need to start focusing on some key things. Firstly, age. Secondly, other biographical information about that individual. Were they married? Did they have children? Thirdly, where were they living? That will help to cut out quite a lot of these other entries. Fourthly, from a certificate, perhaps, you may have worked out what their occupation might have been. Occupation does change quite a lot, but these four key things will allow you to hone in and perhaps get your sample down to two or three possible examples. That way, you can then start looking at the other sources to work out which is the right one. How do I search for children of the same parents?When you find a census return, you’ll find the head of household and usually a wife listed along side them and then you’ll have a list of a
Finding duplicate records of the same ancestor is very common in PRF. Usually this means that branches of your family tree have been submitted by more than one individual who happens to share your ancestry. These family trees may contain multiple generations of ancestors all lineage-linked to your family tree, including missing lines that you may still be researching. Finding duplicate records is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with other family historians–see the Individual Record page to contact the submitters of each family tree and collaborate in your genealogy research.
