The Hampshire Family Historian | Volume 49 No.4 | March 2023

Member’s article

Ancestry indexing error In October 2022, I gave a talk to the Mere Historial Society. I spoke about my ancestors in that area and in particular focused on the Forward family. It’s a common surname in that part of the world and one of my ancestors, Frederick FORWARD, was easy to research as his name was unique during his long lifetime (1790-1872). As part of my research, I used Ancestry’s excellent Land Tax collection which is a really helpful national resource taken in 1798. Anyone with land can be found and this was the case for many Forwards. Taxes owed were proportionate to the amount of land occupied. To start my research I originally just searched for the surname ‘Forward’ with no other filters. This search produced a good number of land tax entries, many of which I used in my talk. However, in amongst the many typical records, I noticed a strange and significant number of entries for a person called ‘Brought Forward’. This seemed an unlikely first name and so I opened up one of the records. It was a valid Land Tax record but I realised that something was seriously wrong. On this, and each other, such occasion, at the top of each page record, the total monetary value from the previous page is copied over. In accounting terms, the amount is brought forward onto the top of the next page. In this Warwick record, these two key accounting words are clearly written in the ‘Name of occupier’ column together with the carried over total of £238 1s. And here lies the problem.

Under this heading are all the names of individual landowners and sums assessed for that area. But Ancestry has clearly decided that Mr Brought Forward is a real person! To prove it’s not a one-off, it happens all over the place.... This is a page from the equivalent Bedford Land Tax records. The amount brought forward here is £93 13s 4d. So beware if you have any names that could be interpreted another way! Richard Backhouse (Member #12569)

161