both parents, Robert and Johanna, as well as the father’s occupation as a butcher (although it is still unclear what happened to the parents a er 1860). I was able to verify that the family immigrated sometime between 1855 and 1860, the years Emil and Robert were born.

Now, armed with new information, I’m planning to take the family research further—by locating an immigration record and eventually their ancestral hometown in Germany.

is a family historian living in Colorado.

BY HELEN HINCHLIFF, PH.D., CG, FASG

“We went all the way to Bristol to look for my husband’s ancestry, but we couldn’t nd anything,” my sister-in-law announced. What genealogist could resist a challenge like that? I armed myself with her father-in-law’s name, Herbert Sage; his wife, Lottie Lane Forster; and his birth year, about 1874. en I turned to Ancestry.com.

I found Lottie with her family in various censuses of Bristol, but, from 1881 through 1901, there was no Herbert Sage. Nor could I nd him in the Civil Registration birth index. Days later, I would discover the trouble: his birth name wasn’t Herbert! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Herbert and Lottie had married just prior to immigrating to Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada, so I searched the 1911 Canadian census, the most recent available. Herbert was there, reporting his birth as August 1874; Lottie’s was listed as May 1872. ey immigrated in 1904. ere was little new here, so I next looked for their marriage record.

An index entry at Ancestry.com for Herbert Sage reported a marriage dur-

ing the rst quarter of 1904; an entry for Lottie Lane Forster referenced the same quarter. e certi cate provided the following information:

Herbert Sage, age 29, bachelor, in the “cycle trade,” son of Henry Albert Sage, boot manufacturer, and Lottie Lane Forster, 31, spinster, daughter of Samuel Forster, accountant, were married on 29 February 1904 at the parish church of Bishopston, County of Bristol.

In 1861 and 1871, Henry Albert Sage and his wife, Charlotte, were living in Bristol with their growing family. However, in 1881, the rst year their son Herbert should have appeared, Charlotte Annie Sage was enumerated as a widow, working as a licensed victualer at the “Stag & Hounds.” Most of her children were not living with her. Maybe Herbert was with relatives, but where?

Online indexed censuses are a great boon, allowing searches through international records. But still I found no Herbert Sage anywhere in England—or beyond. Did the census taker simply miss him in 1881, again in 1891, and yet again in 1901? Or, could he have gone by another name? If the latter were true, then I had one search strategy le — pair surname with occupation.

Like the index to the American 1880 census, the British 1881 census can be searched by occupation. A few years back, I had success nd- ing ve long-lost Davidson ancestors by pairing surname with “cooper,” their ancestral occupation. But what occupation could I use for a six-year-old child?

e British census was designed to measure whether a child was attending school by having the enumerator enter “scholar” in the occupation category. By pairing Sage with “scholar,” I found Bertie Sage and two brothers living as visitors in the household

TODAY

of James Bailey, 64, farm labourer, and his family in Westerleigh, a parish near Bristol. Reportedly, Bertie was only four years old, but his birth certi cate con rmed that I had found my boy. Bertie Sage, the son of Henry Albert Sage and Charlotte Sage ( formerly Pullin), was born 2 August 1875 in the city and county of Bristol. In 1891, Bertie Sage was a servant living in the home of Albert Eastman, timber merchant in Bristol. In 1901, Bertie missed the census—he was in the Boer War.

I asked my sister-in-law if she had ever heard Lottie call Herbert by a nickname. “She always called him Bertie,” she replied, reminding me that you can never ask too many questions.

Queen Victoria had called her beloved Prince Albert “Bertie.” ou- sands of British parents followed suit. Perhaps others will nd that their Herbert or Albert or even Adelbert is actually indexed as just plain Bertie.

has been nding ancestors since 1982. She serves on the board of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

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