This page answers common questions on using this plugin under various circumstances.
- Why don’t the online searches use my signed in account?
- How is the actual or estimated Birth Year determined?
- Which are the partial Census Records that can be excluded?
- Why review Census Records with no lookup website search?
- Can a person be recorded as abroad on a Census date?
- Can children be excluded from the Census searches?
- How is the Surname of each woman determined?
- Can the Lookup Web Page be used at a library?
- How are Census searches refined to adjust the number of matches?
- How do I access all the ‘FindMyPast’ search modes?
- What causes “The Internet appears to be inaccessible” message?
Why don’t the online searches use my signed in account?
Before initiating online searches, sign in to your Ancestry, FindMyPast, FamilySearch & MyHeritage accounts using your PC default browser.
The default browser (Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, etc.) is the one used by the plugin to present the Lookup Web Page, and from that page you can sign in via another tab of the same browser.
If you sign in via a different browser, then your enabled accounts will not be recognised.
How is the actual or estimated Birth Year determined?
Usually, the Birth Year is obtained from the Date in the Birth Event. An offset of ± 5 years is applied to allow for Approximate, Calculated, and Estimated dates, and for the rounding applied to ages in some Census Records.
Otherwise, an estimated Birth Year is obtained from other events such as Baptism, Christening, Death, Burial, Cremation and Marriage, not only of the Individual, but also their relations. The Tools > Preferences > Estimates settings also play a part.
The ± offset is determined from the earliest and latest estimated Birth Year values, and may be affected by Period and Range dates.
For some web searches the birth year and offset is further adjusted to satisfy website requirements and defaults.
Which are the partial Census Records that can be excluded?
The Exclude any partial Census Records… option excludes the collections for each country indicated as Partial in the Table of Census Records.
The online websites give more details about what fragments of the records survive.
For Australia only a few state records exist, so none are excluded by this option.
Why review Census Records with no lookup website search?
Some countries are known to have Census Records, but with no single online repository, it is difficult to offer an automated search regime.
So the plugin allows such records to be reviewed, but the user must search online manually.
These include all the German records and various others for some websites.
Tick Exclude any missing Census Records that have no genealogy lookup web site search available to omit such records.
Can a person be recorded as abroad on a Census date?
If Use their Facts to decide if each person was at home or abroad on missing Census dates is ticked then various Facts are checked to identify the location of the person. In particular Birth, Baptism, Christening, Marriage, Emigration, Immigration, Death, Burial & Cremation events are checked providing they have a Date and Place specified. Facts for which the person is a Fact Witness will be checked.
Also, if a person was abroad on a particular Census Date then any Fact can be entered for that simple single Date with a different Place than the Census Country.
If the person is deemed abroad, then they are not listed as missing from the chosen Census.
Can children be excluded from the Census searches?
The following Census Records only list adults so living children will not appear:
- U.K. Census Records 1821 Dartford, Kent, England
- U.S.A. Census Records 1790-1840 & 1890 Civil War Veterans & Widows Schedule
- Ireland Census Records 1749, 1766, 1831-1851
- Canada Census Records 1825 & 1842 for lower Canada
To omit children & minors from the Lookup Web Page for just those Census Records, set the Minimum Age at Census dates to say 21.
To omit them for all Census Records, tick the Minimum Age applies to every Census? option.
How is the Surname of each woman determined?
Until a woman is involved in a Family partnership her Primary Surname is used, which is conventionally her maiden Birth Surname.
She is given the Primary Surname of her Husband from the latest Family partnership that satisfies all the conditions below:
- Has a Marriage Date or 1st child Birth Date that falls before the current Census Date
- Does NOT have a Divorce/Divorce Filed/Annulment Date before the current Census Date
- Does NOT have a Status of Never Married or Unmarried Couple
- Records her Husband with a non-blank Primary Surname
Can the Lookup Web Page be used at a library?
To use the Lookup Web Page on another PC, such as at a library, requires it to be copied to a USB pen drive memory stick.
The command to perform this copy is similar for most web browsers.
(If hidden, the menubar File command is often revealed by pressing the Alt key.)
- Microsoft Edge uses menu … > More tools > Save page as
- Mozilla Firefox uses File > Save Page As…
- Apple Safari uses File > Save As…
- Google Chrome uses Page > Save page as…
Also, they all recognise the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S
In each case the USB pen drive memory stick should be selected, where an HTML file and a folder with the same name are created.
Alternatively, three files can be copied from the Family Historian Program Data Folder\Plugin Data\ sub-folder.
- lookupmissingcensusfacts.css Cascading Style Sheet
- lookupmissingcensusfacts.js JScript Script File
- lookupmissingcensusfacts-…html HTML Document
How are Census searches refined to adjust the number of matches?
In the Lookup Web Page click a hyperlink in any website column to start an online Census search.
The default search filter values are designed to avoid mistakes such as using the wrong surname for married women or miscalculating the year of an event, but do not guarantee a perfect search. So the filters may need refining to find the desired record, especially if too many or too few records are found by the default search.
Note that people & place Name filters omit text that was enclosed in [[privacy brackets]] or “double quotes“ or ‘single quotes‘ along with the symbols ? * ^ ” ~ % that have a special effect in various websites.
Other family members are often included in the filters, but assume monogamous marriages for spouses. Tick Recognise polygamous relationships to allow polygamous spouses to be included.
Tips for refining search filters such as Names and Years are provided separately for each website:
How do I access all the ‘FindMyPast’ search modes?
FindMyPast offers various World Search modes as described below.
1) Search All Records Mode
Search > Search all records offers Who & When & Where options, with a Where drop-down list of countries and some guidance notes.
There is an extensive set of search filters on the left to narrow the search, and these change according to the Category and Collection chosen, but sometimes key filters such as Gender are missing.
2) Search Record Categories
The Search drop-down has Categories such as Birth, marriage, death and parish and Census, land and surveys that offer similar Who & When & Where record filter options as above.
3) All Record Sets Mode
Via the modes above there is an All record sets central button.
This offers a method of selecting specific record sets, and presents a search form with quite extensive search filters, that can differ significantly from those above.
What causes “The Internet appears to be inaccessible” message?
This plugin checks the Plugin Store for a later version via the Internet. If there is no connection, this message is produced.
While there is no connection, the message is inhibited by all plugins with this feature, until none of them have been run for 10 hours, or one of them detects the connection is restored.
Also, the online Help & Advice pages will be inaccessible.
Return to the Lookup Missing Census Facts main help page.
Help content on this page is owned and provided by Mike Tate, the plugin's author, Calico Pie takes no responsibility for its content.