Elizabeth Haris b1754 Ruardean, c/o Advanced Search (General)

by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Thursday, October 25, 2012, 01:08 (4408 days ago) @ jimashton

Hi Jim,
Apologies if I'm wrong as I haven't read the full background history, but I think I may have found your "lost" Baptism, as per your suggestion using the Advanced Search:

Record ID 54208
Entry Number
Year 1754
Month May
Day 10
Parents Surname HARIS
Child Forenames Elizabeth
Fathers Forenames George
Mothers Forenames Ann
Mothers Surname
Residence
Occupation
Officiating Minister Edward KIDLEY
Event Baptism
Memoranda
Notes Page in PR has dual numbering: 52 and 43. May 11 in BT
Register Reference P275 IN 1/2
Page Number 43
Parish Chapel Ruardean

Wotyereckon ?

Regarding your comment wrt using Advanced Search, which I'm sure you're fibbing about, in this instance I searched "Baptisms" using the following inputs: Surname "Har", Parent's names "Geo" and "Ann".
Hence it will cleverly find spelling variations such as Harris, Haris, Harries, Harrice, George, Ann, Anne, Anna, Hannah, Susannah, etc etc. Yes in this instance amongst the 130 hits it also finds Hardwick etc etc but as the results are displayed in a table they are easy to quickly browse thro. When the results are displayed, first ensure the table is as fully-displayed as possible by selecting a suitable "records per page" number from the dropdown menu, in this case 100, the highest. Now the results can be sorted as you prefer by clicking on the top heading of the relevant column; I prefer chronolical order so clicked "Year". When you find the required PR just click the lefthand "page" icon to display the full PR.
When using this Search as with so many search engines I find and strongly recommend "less is more"; eg don't be tempted to enter the mothers maiden surname, many if not most PRs dont include it so the displayed results won't be optimal, in fact in this example there will be none at all. Worrying about spelling variations as I do, or dare I say possible errors re Betty's mother, personally I would have probably not even input the mother's forename either. Sure, this then gives 600+ results, but again when tabulated chronologically they only take seconds to browse down to your target dates.
If you genuinely do have troubles driving the Advanced Search, please don't think you're alone !. For some months after joining this great site I used to methodically but still laboriously flog thro all the results from the normal PR search, trying to guess spelling variations & errors, until the kindly MPG mentioned the previously unseen Advanced Search method (and I thought I'd studied all the site's features and read the help pages !). Lots of subsequent trial and error has shown me this is a great feature, very much a case of practice makes perfect(ish). Altho like the Soundex it's not completely infallible I still think it is truely wondrous, especially with it's ability to find names from just a few letters and without even using the wildcard character.

I do hope this helps you in future, and that this Baptism is your "missing" link.
atb Jeff.