Elsie May THOMAS - another look at the 1921 census

Back in January 2022, I wrote about the release of the UK 1921 census, which is currently only available through FindMyPast, and about those ancestors I had expected to find in it. [That post, "First look at the 1921 census" can be seen here ]

At the time, I was unable to find my grandmother, Elsie May THOMAS, who was not at home with her parents, George and Rose THOMAS in Collington.  Six of her siblings were with them, including Elsie's older brother, Ernest:

As can be seen, the four youngest children are all aged under fourteen, and still in full time education, but Matilda, at 15, is already working as a servant for someone else in nearby Wolferlow.

Since the ages of the 'missing' older girls ranged from seventeen to twenty four, I suspected they were all living away from home, probably employed in some form of domestic service.  This was soon confirmed to be the case for the eldest girl, Edith, aged 24, who I found with her grandparents, John and Priscilla THOMAS, in Stoke Bliss, recorded as working for John, dealing with the poultry and dairy work.

The other two girls were not difficult to find: 

Hilda Mary THOMAS, aged 22, was in Mamble, Cleobury Mortimer, in Shropshire, employed as a "Help" to a farmer and his wife, who had an eight month old baby.

And Ada Annie, at 17, was a domestic servant for another family in Collington. 

But there was no sign of Elsie.  I suspected that she was in the database somewhere, probably local to the rest of the family, but just mistranscribed to such an extent that it made her difficult to find.  I did try some possible alternative spellings, but without success.

This is always a problem when using computerised databases - if you don't search using the spellings that match what is recorded in the database, even with the use of wildcards, it can be impossible to find people.

Fortunately, in October last year, FindMyPast introduced an additional subscription covering the 1921 census.  So, for a relatively small payment (compared to what I could have previously spent trying out "possible" entries), I would be able to view all of the 1921 census images.  This meant that I could go back to using the "old" method for finding someone in a census, ie ploughing through the images page by page.

And it didn't take long.  

As I had suspected, Elsie was still local, in Upper Sapey, just a few miles from Collington, working as a general domestic servant.  She had been transcribed under the name of "Elsie Mary NAMAS"

 

After obtaining confirmation from some of the other Guild members, who agreed with me that it was "May," rather than "Mary," and also that the surname was more likely to be THOMAS, than NAMAS, I contacted FindMyPast, who also agreed and soon made the correction.

With hindsight, it becomes easy to ask, "Why didn't I try.... combination of search terms?" In my defence, all I can say is that I did my best, especially given that it was past midnight, and many of the combinations I did try were producing hundreds, if not thousands, of results. 

So I am just happy that Elsie had a job fairly locally and that the 'old' method therefore worked quite quickly.