Hit a brick wall on Ancestry - is it worth subscribing elsewhere?

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I've hit a brick wall looking for a few British 19th and early 20th century ancestors on Ancestry, which is frustrating - have trawled the GRO index and census records but some of them simply disappear. Would it be a waste of time to try thegenealogist or findmypast as an alternative? Do they offer different (better?) search options?

TIA for any tips or advice 🙏

The 1921 census is available on Findmypast but not Ancestry (yet), if that's any help. It's a good few years since I did family history research so not aware of any other differences.

Have you looked at the American records available on Ancestry? Some of them may have emigrated.

Thank you - I signed up to Find My Past thinking I could access the 1921 records but it wasn't included in a normal subscription. Apparently you can access it free at local libraries so I'm going to do that instead for the 1921 records.

I'm more interested in different/better search functions as Ancestry can be quite clunky!

I found Find My Past to have access to different records - and also found some census records on there that weren't on Ancestry despite being the same year, so I'd recommend it.

Not been on in a while but the family tree facility isn't as user friendly though.

Have you looked up details on the extended family at all, I’ve got thorough some of my brick walls through doing this as an ancestor could end up staying at a relatives house but the surname may be mistranscribed or just originally misrecorded ss same surname as rest of hosuehold

@BasilParsley I got a 3 month worldwide subscription bundled with my DNA test (results pending) so I have got access to international records, and I did find a 3rd great grandfather who abandoned his children and emigrated to Boston (the kids all grew up in the workhouse!).

@whiteroseredrose thank you, that's what I was hoping to hear - I think it might be worth it to fork out for a month on Find My Past and see if I get any joy there.

@Morph22010 That is good thinking and I have tried this, in particular I'm missing records for a sister of my great grandmother - I can track all of her sisters in 1901 and 1911 but she is completely missing. I thought perhaps she was sent to live with a relative, so I've trawled through all the aunt and uncle census records I can find, to no avail. Nor does she come up in any workhouse records. Weird!

They sometimes used completely different random names, my granddads brother for example was Albert Edward but he was known as Joe, if he was down as Joe on a census (he’s not as it happens) then someone looking would struggle to see it was the same person. Are there any other family members with diff names that pop up for one census only?

The 1922 Census is only free in three locations, Manchester Library, The National Archives in London or The Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.

Unless your specific library has bought the full subscription from findmypast. So probably worth a call to check.

I found that they regularly have the 1921 census half price so would be £1.75 for the image or £1.25 for the transcription. Very trusting they charge for both options! You just have to wait for a sale date. I only needed 4 so was happy to do that.

@Morph22010 good point - this particular relative was born Lilian Solomon, but was always known as Lily. The sisters anglicised their surname to Salmon on occasion too. I have tried putting in variations, but Ancestry seems to do quite a good job of picking up on variations by itself.

Another of my brick walls is a g-g-grandfather (Lily's dad) who was sometimes Samuel, sometimes Simon

Thank you for this! I will look out for sales then

You don't mention her age, I take it she would have been too young to have married by then?

Also, the typical reason for girls or young women to leave home at that time was to go into domestic service so she may be recorded elsewhere. For example, my family comes from Gloucestershire but I had a relative who was working as a domestic servant in London at the age of 15.

Also, as well as aunts and uncles also have a look to see if she was living with her grandparents - I've found this quite often in my family tree.

"I signed up to Find My Past thinking I could access the 1921 records..."

"I can track all of her sisters in 1901 and 1911 but she is completely missing."

If it's of any help, there are 20 Lily or Lilly or Lillie Solomons on the 1921 Census, of whom 10 were born before 1901

There are also 18 Lillians as well, 9 of whom were born before 1901.

I just had a quick look and there was no sign of a Lilian or Lily living with a Sam or Simon.

There was a Lily living with two older sisters of a similar age and a widowed mother (name starting with R) in Shoreditch and a Lilian who was living with her much older sister (name starting with J) and her husband in Tottenham.

Of course, if she wasn't living at home earlier then, by 1921 she may already have married and would be living under a different name.

"the sisters anglicised their surname to Salmon on occasion too"

There are 131 Lily or Lilian Salmons on the 1921 census.

@Another2Cats thank you so much for taking the time to have a look.

Lily was born in 1898 and she's missing from the 1901 and 1911 censuses.

In 1901 I have Lily's mother and her five older sisters in West Ham, but no Lily.

I've tried looking for her with grandparents, but her paternal grandparents are another two who vanish from the records (and tbh I'm not 100% certain I have the right people - more of a strong possible).

Maternal grandmother was in Dublin and Lily wasn't there, nor with any of the aunts and uncles. Her father, Simon/Samuel is also missing in 1901, but he was a commercial traveller so probably away from home on census day. It seems really unlikely that he would have a 3 year old with him. Perhaps she was in hospital?

In 1908 their mother Maria is admitted to the workhouse with Violet and Matilda, but again no Lily.

In 1911 you have found Lily's sisters, Julia, Rachael and Violet (my g-grandmother) in Tottenham. The rest of the family are missing from the 1911 records, as far as I can tell. Their mother Maria lived until 1954, so she was definitely still alive. Adelaide (b 1893), Lily and Matilda (b 1903) are nowhere to be found in 1911, nor is their father Simon/Samuel (he was definitely alive in 1911 because I have him witnessing two of his daughters' marriages in 1916).

Would Lily be old enough to be in domestic service in 1911 when she would have been 13? Older sister Adelaide/Ada certainly could have been, and it's plausible because they were poor.

Lily married in 1922, so it would be worth my looking her up in the 1921 census I think.

Sorry for the massive essay, and thanks again for taking the trouble to do a search for me

Aha! I have found her in 1921 living with her sister Julia (I didn't realise that on Find My Past they will give you the first names of others at the address even without a subscription!).

From my earlier post:

"...and a Lilian who was living with her much older sister (name starting with J) and her husband in Tottenham."

To save you a bit of money, here's the 1921 census. I don't think this attachment will be the same size as the original that I can download. If you PM me I will send you the original.

The handwriting is difficult to read but Lilian was working as a shop assistant at Messrs Marshall Snellgrove who were drapers on Oxford Street.

Her brother in law was self employed and worked as a cycle maker & repairer. They lived at 10 St Ann's Road Tottenham

I found quite a lot of errors in the early census records, particularly - you can almost imagine the census taker struggling to understand locals accents or complicated explanations of who was related to who. Most of my female ancestors were in the habit of knocking a few years off their age, even at their own weddings...

I was on Ancestry for several years with no results. Thanks to a thread on MN I downloaded my data from there and uploaded to MyHeritage. Within 3 weeks I'd found my biological father and extended paternal family.

@Another2Cats you found her! That is so incredibly kind of you, thank you

@Eyesopenwideawake thank you, I will take a look at MyHeritage 🙏

@HullaBallu ain't that the truth, you come across some bizarre spellings and some of the transcriptions are bonkers.

@Eyesopenwideawake just a follow up - I've uploaded my DNA and gedcom to MyHeritage and have some interesting new leads to follow up, so thank you for that recommendation 🙏

@Morph22010, she might have gone into live in service.