Hi Lynne, thanks for your kind comments ! Two important hints if I may;

1. Re being unable to find some Burial records within this FoD site, I strongly recommend you practise using the Advance Search as this is a Godsend, b4 I learnt of it (from MPG blessher) I spent hours trawling thro hundreds of individual Baptism PRS to creat family groups, for example !
2. Please search this forum for old posts against your family names as they and their family lines may well have been researched in the past, the incorrectly named Slowhands is particularly good at such work.

For Cheltenham a quick look on the Glos BMD site I see gives MANY Harold Symonds(presumably a "family" name much like Leonard was in my mother's line). How's this:

Birth Details
Number of entries matching criteria entered: 1
Child Surname Child Forename Father Surname Mother Surname Mother's Former Name Year District Office Register Entry
SYMONDS Harold W SYMONDS SYMONDS BARTLETT 1907 Cheltenham Cheltenham, Cheltenham 20A 30

AND

Marriage Details
Number of entries matching criteria entered: 1
Groom Surname Groom Forename Bride Surname Bride Forename District Parish Building Year Register Entry
SYMONDS Harold William TREASURE June Marie Forest of Dean Cinderford St John the Evangelist 1955 6 15

Are these correct, if so I see my home town Cinderford albeit not "our" Church. I do recognise the surname Treasure tho from my schooldays there, a Mark Treasure springs to mind...

You will find that as you get more recent many if not all free sites don't show info in case it relates to living people.

Now over to you to fill out all those gaps !
Enjoy !!

Assume you have the full 1911 census for

Glos. Cheltenham, District 31
Page 19 of 19 (Leckhampton)

No. on Schedule 231

Moorend House
Moorend Steet
Cheltenham

SYMONDS

William - 44 - married 15 years, 6 children born alive, 4 living, 2 dead, Grocer/Shopkeeper (own account) born Glos. Newent
Elizabeth - 42 -born Devon. Torquay
Herbert - 11 - School, born Newent
Frank - 9 - born Newent
Edith - 8 - born Glos. Cheltenham
Harold - 3 - born Glos. Cheltenham

Hi Lynne,
Sorry for using abbreviations, FoD = Forest Of Dean. Also please bear in mind this site & forum is for Dean research enquiries only, so if you have any queries outside of this area she is kindly offering to help you offline. MPG is so very helpfull, unlike me she's expert at this, tho' like me she does this largely as a hobby nowadays; I believe she shares my view that it's far more interesting and usefull than the likes of crosswords or electronic braintrainers etc.
Also some posters will use "FoD" next to their posted info, to clarify that it is this website's PR records which are the source of their quoted PRs etc. Any other similar queries pls ask, I had the same problems myself not so many months ago.

Wrt the 1911 Full Census, didnt you say you had Ancestry access ?. If not then it's FreeCen although I must admit I've not used this for sometime and being a free site relying on voumteers transcripting the info I don't know what the current coverage is for the areas you're researching. Occasionally you can find other free sites with partial Census transcriptions, I know of some for Longhope & Redmarley for example. I've searched the web and found hundreds of very usefull free sites for my research, across many parts of the UK, but I can honestly say I've not found any which can hold a candle to this FoD FH site for its fantastic PRs (Parish Records) database nevermind all the other stuff that really does need studying too.

Yes as you say this business can rapidly grow like the proverbial into a fulltime exercise. I started looking about 18 months ago and foolishly embarked on researching 6 different family trees at the same time, needless to say none are complete especially as I like looking into all the possible side branches as well, not to mention learning about the local social history etc as well. I rarely use Ancestry etc except occasionally the free version at my public library, I think this is perhaps a good job as they seem expert at incredibly bad transcription errors & sending me down false trails with "hints" that often are not ! Most of my trees I've found using the various free websites especially this FoD one (the best I've found anywhere in the UK which is so lucky for us); I then take my own "leads" to the library to lookup the Census gen from Ancestry.

Yes you must always try to prove & cross reference your own research, some people don't and just make glib assumptions. Always keep records of your work at all times, even if something/one doesnt fully "fit" now it may do later, similarly you can save yourselve repeating the same line of research which is especially frustrating if it turns out to be irrelevant to your tree.

Good night Jeff