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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Greensleeves on Monday 24 April 17 22:12 BST (UK)
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Whilst searching for an ancestor recently, it occurred to me that the ten-yearly census returns leave huge gaps in our knowledge.
I thought about my own life, and it is certainly true here. A census of 1951 would find me in Ipswich, Suffolk; and the 1961 census would also find me in Ipswich. However, during those ten years I moved from Ipswich to Norfolk, then to Yorkshire, back to Ipswich briefly, off to Huntingdonshire, then to Cyprus for two years, returning briefly to Blackpool and then back to Ipswich. But as far as the census returns are concerned, I never left Ipswich!
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Good point GS, and the example of your own moves around the country (and also out of it) prove that all we see is a snapshot of one day in their life every 10 years. It makes you wonder what we are missing in those years between the census.
My example would be the opposite of yours, I have lived in the same town all of my life, although in 5 different houses.
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This is why it's important to find if there are any surviving family photographs and old postcards, which could give clues.
Also 1951 to 1961 might not be a mystery if the person had been conscripted into H.M. Forces
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Well spotted, Rena, as my father was in the Royal Air Force. But someone just checking the census may well not have found him 'at home' on either occasion as he was frequently abroad whilst we were left in this country, so my mother might on both census have been marked as 'married' and 'Head' of household, without any clue as to the missing husband. So just looking at the census returns, with my father absent, there would be no indication that he was in the RAF since he wasn't there.....
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I have a strange one too in the 10 yrs from 2001 - 2011.
Married on the 2001 yet divorced on the 2011.
I am in the same abode (house/address) which I've been in for over 30 yrs.
No-one will understand why I would say I was married on the 2001 yet divorced on the 2011 as there's 'No marriage to be found' :D
I was married abroad but they will find my divorce if they think to look unless they just assume I was lying ;D
No children to the marriage either!
Annie
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Agreed.
Some people also assume too much from what they see on the census. They don't consider (or forget) that the census only listed the people living in a house for one night.
Because a grandchild was living with grandparents they assume the parents are dead or separated. If a married daughter is with her parents they assume she is separated or in an unhappy marriage. If a married man is not at home they may incorrectly presume he has abandoned the family .... etc.
:-\
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Gs & Ruskie,
I think this topic has highlighted quite a few things which are often mistaken for other things as sometimes people are too quick to make assumptions :P
Annie
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Some people also assume too much from what they see on the census. They don't consider (or forget) that the census only listed the people living in a house for one night.
The 1891 census raised an unanswered question about my widowed gt-grandmother, who resided in a Liverpool suburb with several children. She was recorded (with two teenagers) in the company of an unmarried man of similar age (~50) in Wallasey. That is his only known appearance in her life. I presume that if anything naughty was happening, they believed census records were confidential ?
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The census is a snapshot taken mainly for government statisticians, it wasn't designed for family historians!
Skoosh.
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I am in the 2001 census at my current address and in the 2011 census. I filled in the 2011 census form. Inbetween 2001 and 2011 I went to Australia, China, Thailand and Singapore. Yet it seems I never left my village if you look at the censuses.
In 1881 my ancestor is in North Bedburn, Durham and in 1891 St Helen Auckland, Durham but in 1886 he went to America for a few years, popped back then in 1892 went back to America again for good to join his 2 daughters there. His other children remained in Blighty.
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I always cursed those pesky ancestors who dared to move around between censuses, until I realised that the 6 that I've been on, I have been in 6 different places and don't particulary think I've moved around a lot.
Simon
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The census is a snapshot taken mainly for government statisticians, it wasn't designed for family historians!
Yes but they got a little bit better at it after 100 years. Most people wouldn't have known about children dying young, if not for the 1911 Total children and alive.
From 1851 you could gauge wealth (Employer of so many men. Workhouse.) (servants etc ) mental issues. Illegitimacy. So as a tool for statisticians It worked out quite well.
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Gs & Ruskie,
I think this topic has highlighted quite a few things which are often mistaken for other things as sometimes people are too quick to make assumptions :P
Annie
That's very true, Annie. How often do people on here say that "Fred" was living with his grandparents, when in fact he may just have been having a sleep over while his parents were at a party? ;D ;D The census is very useful, but we do have to keep in mind that it isn't the full story - 10 years is a long time.
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I was recorded three times on the 1981 census.
Firstly, as a single Airman living in barracks at RAF Honington (without my knowledge).
Secondly, I and two others, were building a model railway exhibition layout. We should have been at a friends house building, but his wife was taken seriously ill. Instead of the four in his household, plus the three of us, making seven, there was in reality no one in that house that night.
Thirdly, I spent the weekend with my girlfriend and was correctly enumerated.
Not being a householder at the time, all these events passed me by. It was a couple of months later that I was aware of it but by then no one wanted to know.
Regards
Chas
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The census was not designed for family historians but 1851-1911 are very helpful and as we know they give birthplaces, names, occupations and ages, just sometimes that info can be inaccurate and misleading. The 1841 is the first useful census even if relationship to head of household was not given and you only put whether born in county of residence or not.
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Directories and electoral registers can fill in the gaps. It's best to use as many resources as possible. You're never going to get the full picture if you're looking into the lives of ancestors but the more resources you have for your research the more of the picture you will see.
Blue
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I was recorded three times on the 1981 census.
Chas
On the 1891 census my Scolttish engineer grandfather was entered twice - he was recorded as being a railway ticket collector in the south of England and as a lodger up in Manchester, Lancashire. As a newbie at the time I wondered which man was my grandfather. It took a while to realise his job as a trouble shooting railway engineer being sent all over the country meant that he'd been duplicated and actually neither of his hosts knew his occupation..
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In the 1911 census, my great uncle, Walter Sedgwick of Hartlepool, Co Durham, appears in Stafford as Sidney Rainbow, together with his wife and children. It was thanks to Jan (Groom) that he was found, and we suspect that Sidney was unofficially sub-letting the house to Walter Sedgwick, and that Walter, in a panic, took his name on census night. His wife and children retained their forenames, but also appeared as Rainbows! Another example of how census returns can be misleading.
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In the 1911 census, my great uncle, Walter Sedgwick of Hartlepool, Co Durham, appears in Stafford as Sidney Rainbow, together with his wife and children. It was thanks to Jan (Groom) that he was found, and we suspect that Sidney was unofficially sub-letting the house to Walter Sedgwick, and that Walter, in a panic, took his name on census night. His wife and children retained their forenames, but also appeared as Rainbows! Another example of how census returns can be misleading.
It was pure luck there that his wife and children had uncommon forenames and kept them, together with the correct ages and places of birth! ;D ;D
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Just an aside here, as I noticed with interest that Coombs has St Helen Auckland, Durham links, as well as Suffolk links. I have the same, with my Sidgwick family lurking in the St Helen Auckland area for a number of years, before trotting off to Hartlepool in search of better money and poorer housing conditions, no doubt.
I remain hugely impressed Jan (Groom), despite your claim that the discovery was luck. To be asked to find Walter Sedgwick and then present me, correctly, with Sidney Rainbow, takes some special kind of skill!
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We can also wonder about the level of education some enumerators had especially those employed in urban places in 1861 because that is the year that I find with more erroneous entries ;)
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Just an aside here, as I noticed with interest that Coombs has St Helen Auckland, Durham links, as well as Suffolk links. I have the same, with my Sidgwick family lurking in the St Helen Auckland area for a number of years, before trotting off to Hartlepool in search of better money and poorer housing conditions, no doubt.
I remain hugely impressed Jan (Groom), despite your claim that the discovery was luck. To be asked to find Walter Sedgwick and then present me, correctly, with Sidney Rainbow, takes some special kind of skill!
Yes, my Durham ancestors lived in the St Helen Auckland areas. Musgrave, Wilson, Forster. Several of them went to America, including a direct ancestor.
One of them went to America in July 1880 so missed the 1880 US census and had left England by 1881 of course. Pity the 1890 US census has just a few fragments.
Also newspaper ads and workhouse records can fill in the 10 year gaps between censi on top of BMDs and directories. Makes you wonder just how many un digitised records are out there with info on our rellies.
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We have a census mystery that looks quite reasonable at first glance- so reasonable that a cousin has added the details to online tree :-\
Background- my grandmother's parents (both born Canada) lived on an island and had 6 daughters & 1 son (youngest child) :-\- all are fully documented (birth, baptism, school records, etc.) & the places they lived (with dates) are known. A few months before the census her mother died.
Now, the 1930 U.S. census lists father as widower, 2 unmarried daughters, 2 grandsons and a son. No problem, right? WRONG!
The 'real' son is living with his wife and child on a boat at the island so appears as the next census entry. The 'mystery' son is given as same age as my grandmother with same birthplace as most of the children, same occupation as his 'father.' His first name is a surname (not one found elsewhere in family). Strangely enough, a boy the same age with the same first name appears in a previous census in the same town with a different surname (his mother and sister both have yet again different surnames and I've been unable to trace any of them in other records).
When the census record was released I asked all living relatives for information but none of them remember this person, hearing the name or any mention of an illegitimate child. Based on all I know I find it difficult to believe at my grandmother's bereaved father would not have acknowledged a child or would have had an illegitimate son staying with the family but if such a thing did happen then his family would certainly have known about it.
To further illustrate misleading census information- same great-grandfather, a brother and a sister are listed in the 1911 Canadian census in the childhood home with mother as head of household. All three had lived outside Canada for years and were only home for a visit.
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We can also wonder about the level of education some enumerators had especially those employed in urban places in 1861 because that is the year that I find with more erroneous entries ;)
They could only copy down what the householders (or whoever assisted them) had written on the forms. There would have been lots of poor handwriting that was difficult to read.
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We can also wonder about the level of education some enumerators had especially those employed in urban places in 1861 because that is the year that I find with more erroneous entries ;)
They could only copy down what the householders (or whoever assisted them) had written on the forms. There would have been lots of poor handwriting that was difficult to read.
In 1861 many of the householders would not have been able to write adequately, so the enumerators would have to interpret their dictation.
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I was recorded three times on the 1981 census.
Not being a householder at the time, all these events passed me by. It was a couple of months later that I was aware of it but by then no one wanted to know.
Chas
So, come 2081 your descendants will be on a wild goose Chas(e) & trying to work out which is really you ??? ::) ;D
Annie
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An interesting mis-spelling which I found on one of the scavenger hunts on here was that an elusive Mrs Howell turned out to have been entered as Mrs Owl. ;D
It would also help if our ancestors knew their own names. I have a lady who married with the surname of Mattley, and even gave that name to her first-born son as a Christian name. After battering at a brick wall for some time, all was revealed when I found that her surname was actually Mattingley. The situation had been complicated because there was a birth at the same time as hers, also in London, with her forename, the surname Mattley, and the same father's name as had appeared on my ancestor's marriage certificate.
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In the 2011 census form, I omitted my middle name from the forms.
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We can also wonder about the level of education some enumerators had especially those employed in urban places in 1861 because that is the year that I find with more erroneous entries ;)
They could only copy down what the householders (or whoever assisted them) had written on the forms. There would have been lots of poor handwriting that was difficult to read.
In 1861 many of the householders would not have been able to write adequately, so the enumerators would have to interpret their dictation.
I don't think this happened quite as much as people think it did.
Forms were left at the houses and collected a few days later. The householders were expected to have them already filled in for the enumerator. In the meantime help was often forthcoming from local clergy or more literate neighbours. This would still lead to misspellings, mishearings, misunderstandings and plain old guessing of course.
'Making Sense of the Census' gives more information on this. In 1871 the enumerators were asked to show how many forms they had to complete themselves, and the figures varied widely.
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Forms were left at the houses and collected a few days later. The householders were expected to have them already filled in for the enumerator. In the meantime help was often forthcoming from local clergy or more literate neighbours. This would still lead to misspellings, mishearings, misunderstandings and plain old guessing of course.
... or even the odd little white lie thrown in?
A gt-uncle of mine was lodging in Bolton in 1901, recorded clearly as born in Jamaica. It is established fact that he was born in Anglesey, and I can't see any likely mutation there. I blame his landlord, who may have made something up.
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There is a place called Anglesea in Jamaica,
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It's a shame that we have no way of knowing who actually did fill in those forms. And a shame of course that the forms weren't kept, like the 1911 ones!
There are so many ways in which the wrong information could have gone down - and that's before the enumerator started to transcribe it all, possibly by candlelight!
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There is a place called Anglesea in Jamaica,
No doubt. But in every other census his birthplace is correct, as recorded on his 1876 Welsh birth certificate.
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I was looking for an Arthur BRABBS the other day.
The enumerator's transcription in 1871 was Luther DRABS. :(
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At the beginning of this thread, greensleeves queried how useful census returns are when today we move around so much. I don't think I have been in the same place for two consecutive censuses and sometimes I have moved 2 or 3 times between censuses and getting married in one country and divorced in another could present problems to future historians
But I found a census return that shows how much the family have moved. - not a relative of mine but a relative of my step-grandmother, if there is such a term.
Her first husband died at Flanders in 1916 and I wanted to find out a bit more about his family and found the 1891 census for them.
From the details for the different family members it is evident that their father William was born in Alresford Hampshire and married a girl from Plymouth in Devon.
The first child on the census was born in Denbighshire, North Wales and then there were 2 born in Cork, Ireland.
Then 3 were born in Overton and then 3 more in Meon Stoke in Hampshire.
I have yet to find why they moved around to all these places but that is for the future as I get back to my relatives.
Jan
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Jan, folk moved for the bucks & the train meant that they could! ;D
Skoosh.
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Thinking about it my census returns will cause no end of confusion ;D.
1981, 1991 and 2001 I'm registered under my maiden name. A few weeks after the 2001 census I married, moved house, moved again, had a baby, he left, I moved twice more, returned to my maiden name by 2011 census, then a couple of months after that I remarried (nowhere near home) and since then have moved three more times, had another baby, completely changed career. At least I can potentially have as much of a laugh as my ancestors are having at me (unless they have my research)