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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Stanwix England on Friday 04 September 20 02:35 BST (UK)
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I'm not asking anyone to look as I've asked for help with this individual before - I'm just thinking aloud really.
I've been looking tonight at one of my brick walls, it's someone I've posted about here in years past with no success - so I know it's not just my terrible finding stuff ability.
It occurs to me that maybe this particular relative was less then honest about their past for some reason and that's why I can't trace them.
For example, they give their birth location as one thing on most census returns and then for some reason give a totally different county on the 1911 census. It's definitely them because other details and people match up. I can see the original image so it's not a case of something being mistranscribed, and it was them who signed the form so it wasn't like someone else entered their details wrong.
It seems like such an odd thing to do, why state a totally different county? Where they afraid of authority and felt the need to hide for some reason? Was it some sort of odd joke?
Have you ever felt like one of your ancestors did something like this?
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I suspect many did, reasons only known to them
Louisa Maud
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I know I have
he cannot con me --- my 2nd gg' was illegitimate but professes on his marriage cert to actually knowing that his father was a SURGEON well why not...
maybe I am wrong
xin
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Many in my families have very elastic ages, increased or decreased to suit their needs.
My great aunt and uncle both killed off their father when they married, he outlived my great aunt.
In the 1851 and 1861 my 2 X great grandfather was born in places many miles apart, but his age remained the same, 60 both times.
Not his fault but my cousin was declared killed in action during WW1 and around three months later declared alive and a POW.
Did they purposely lie or just make a mistake? I have no real idea.
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If this is a brick wall it might be worth looking at it from the opposite direction.
At 1911, with the signature of person, you have good reason to believe that person is the author of the information....self-recording. Person sees what information is recorded.
For earlier Census records......who is the author of the details recorded about person?
Unless you know who gave information that you see on earlier Census records , it might be that the 1911 birthplace is correct, and earlier Census records are incorrect.
The Census records you have...what span of person's life do they cover......infancy...childhood....adolescence...marriage /s.....old age?
Have you located a birth / baptism record for person?
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Thinking outside box too
Were the counties adjacent had borders changed.?
Maybe he found out his true birth place .my grandfather thought he was born in Wales where he grew up but had actually been born in England and may only have learnt when he got his birth certificate.
Also I have a great uncle who was born in Ireland 1906 most of his relatives came from small village in Scotland ..I thought it was a mistake but it was consistent and eventually a friendly rootschatter found his ( unmarried ) parents on an electoral roll in Belfast .
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I have ancestors who have different Occupations and ages on every form that was completed in their lifetimes!
And I'm still convinced that my Paternal Grandfather took on a different name when he Married my Grandmother in 1893...
Reason being, - he's nowhere to be found before then!
Romilly.
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I think it's a combination of misunderstandings, white lies and full-on lies.
One greatx2 grandfather keeps giving different birthplaces in the censuses - all close, but not one single location - so I've never found a baptism for him to pin down his parents.
I assume that he lived with his parents in various places and never knew exactly where they were when he was born.
A great grandmother consistently gives age matching birthdate of c 1850/51 - but I've never found her registration or baptism, although there is another very tempting person of the same name born in 1846 who might be her. Did she just not know how old she was? Did she match her age to her 'husband'(s), neither of whom she actually married, so far as I can find?
Who knows.....
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I'm sure many people made things up or didn't know for certain. My maternal grandmother lied about her age on her second marriage and my father gave the name of his uncle as his father when he married. As a father wasn't named on his birth certificate he either wanted to keep up appearances or there was a little incest in the family.
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I had a similar problem with a William Ward, who had a cousin with the same name and of the same age, but both born in different hamlets. "My" William found work outside of his home county and always gave the name of the hamlet where he'd lived as a child and where his younger siblings had been born. It wasn't until he married that he gave his correct place of birth on the census, which was not the same hamlet as his younger siblings. His cousin William had muddied the waters because he had been born in the same hamlet as his younger cousins.
A few miles from where I live there are villagers that still grumble because they now live outside the county where their family homes were built. The houses were originally built on land in the White Rose land of Yorkshire but due to boundary changes, they are now in Red Rose Land of Lancashire. Feelings were so strong, it could be the case that caused hundreds of census returns to be filled in incorrectly.
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Found Nana's birth father in 1891 age 20assumed the lady with him age 40 both lodgers same surname was a mother or aunt.
Spent ages looking for the her elsewhere turns out it was his father !
Anyone else got relatives who changed gender
* I doubt anyone lied about his gender just an error somewhere
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My 2xgreat grandmother was born in rural Sussex in December 1863. Her parents moved to London in 1864. I always thought she was born in London as 1881-1901 census gave Stoke Newington as her birthplace. I visited the Tower hamlets archive in the summer of 2004 and looked at 1871 census returns for Bow. The 1871 census contradicted subsequent censuses saying London as her birthplace. 1871 census said she was born in Sussex, same as her mother. (Father born in the Garden of England county). I was gobsmacked at the Sussex place of birth given in 1871 census in Bow, London, and I found out she was actually born in Sussex but grew up in London from babyhood. She spent her childhood in Stoke Newington, Bow, Lambeth, Walworth then Holborn. I think she naturally assumed she was born in London. After all, someone born in 1863 would rarely if ever need to seek out their birth cert.
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Intentional or un-intentional or just lazy with data? They were not obsessives like us!
1. With the exception of 1911, Who speaks for the Household? Invariably the male Head who gives the enumerator 'any old info' for his new woman [not married] her birthplace as Limerick rather than the correct Sligo. [Well somewhere over there!]
2. When children were 'seen and not heard' they would be very unlikely to see the record let alone challenge the given birthplace, with 'but Mother-dear, you once told me that I was born at my Grandma's place as I was the first-born and Daddy was away as a soldier'. Of course Granny might have moved house several times in the interim. 'Oh they were all born in Wandsworth'.
3. Unless all your friends are family historians, the people I know have little idea of where they were born 'somewhere in Yorkshire or London', let alone the actual Civil Registration District. Whilst our Mother was resident in the same London home, all my 5 siblings were born from different London hospitals in different districts.
4. The most common responses are 'I do remember growing up in somewhere near Birmingham until I was aged 5' which probably has little relation to birthplace.
5. Even our Registration Districts change enormously and often traverse County Boundaries or even village boundaries.
There is no hope for us!
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Two Londoners I know, one born 1967 in the East End and one born 1988 in Westminster say "I was born at a hospital in either Walthamstow or Leytonstone" and the other "Somewhere in Westminster". Even now it goes to show how many may not be 100% sure where they were born especially in a big city such as London.
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Can also depend on how far from "home" you are?
I was born in Bristol (Southmead Hospital), as I was a twin born prematurely.
But my family were from North Somerset, and I "returned there at the age of 4 or 5 weeks!
Southmead was the designated maternity hospital for North Somerset!
So, I often say I am from Portishead, North Somerset ;D
But, when I lived in the Netherlands it was easier to say I was born in Bristol, as they knew that place!
I think something similar happened in days gone by?
The further from "home" you are, the more general the place of birth.
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Two Londoners I know, one born 1967 in the East End and one born 1988 in Westminster say "I was born at a hospital in either Walthamstow or Leytonstone" and the other "Somewhere in Westminster". Even now it goes to show how many may not be 100% sure where they were born especially in a big city such as London.
That'll be Whipps Cross Hospital I can confidently say......(the Walthamstow/Leytonstone one)
No idea about Westminster though
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TWO gt gtgrandfathers both were economical with the truth, on one side. Both declared they were born in Ireland - but never seemed to be able to settle on a place, north or south, or a religion, tho' I suspect one started off as R.C., and I could never fasten them, or their parents. As a result, very short shoots on those two tiny branches before they die out. Pity, as I've "got" them both from their marriages in England, onwards. (One did bother my by getting a second marriage after his wife had died, but almost immediately tidies things up by dying himself in Fleetwood Lancs.)
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Two Londoners I know, one born 1967 in the East End and one born 1988 in Westminster say "I was born at a hospital in either Walthamstow or Leytonstone" and the other "Somewhere in Westminster". Even now it goes to show how many may not be 100% sure where they were born especially in a big city such as London.
That'll be Whipps Cross Hospital I can confidently say......(the Walthamstow/Leytonstone one)
No idea about Westminster though
Don't be so certain ... my brother (whom I shall not name as he is still alive) was born in 1966 in Walthamstow General Hospital. So that might be the hospital referred to.
Hospital caterers were on strike; nurses sent out to the local fish and chip shop to feed patients. Always arrived cold. Mother vowed never to have a hospital birth again. I was born in 1967, at home in Loughton. Family doctor was Dr Barnado (close relative ... possibly grandson, but the story varies every time I hear it of THE Dr Barnado, whose private residence was Ardmore House in Loughton ... a house which my great grandfather purchased in 1937 or 1938).
My great grandmother (NOT the wife of he who bought Ardmore House ... a different great grandmother) was a cleaner at Whipp's Cross Hospital ...
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But the general point is well made.
Nobody has a personal memory of where they were born. They just know what they have been told ... IF they ever asked ... which they might not have done. If they didn't ask, they might have made an assumption, which could be correct or could not.
In the modern day and age, exact date of birth is important to so many things, and we keep meticulous records. Before the welfare state, however, nobody was avidly counting the days to their 60th or 65th birthday when they would qualify for their state pension. In the days before modern education laws, nobody was carefully tracking the date on which a child should start school, or before which they could not enter the workforce. In the days before modern laws on alcohol, tobacco, glue, blade and other sales, nobody was obsessively interested in whether somebody could prove that they were over 18 or not.
So in an age when nobody cared that much about exact age, few people monitored it closely (consider the scene in "Far From The Madding Crowd", when they are in the pub trying to figure out JUST how old the old man actually was ... Hardy was not trying to write a humorous parody ... this was genuinely the kind of way in which people would try to figure it out).
And then, once every ten years, somebody comes along and asks "How old are you? Where were you born? How old is your wife? Where was she born? How old are each of your children? Where was each of them born?" People couldn't remember exactly ... and neither could they remember what answers they had given last time around. So the answers given may vary from census to census. Not really any great surprise there ...
I have always worked on the basis that the most accurate information as to approximate date of birth and place of birth is to be found on the EARLIEST census that a person appears in, unless that is the 1841 census in which case the 1851 census is likely to be more useful (especially if 1841 says they were not born "in county"). That is closest to the event when memory is likely to be freshest and, let's face it, you are FAR less likely to make an erroneous report that a 1 year old is 3 or 4 than you are to make an erroneous report that an 11 year old is 13 or 14.
And of course, the less schooling the person making the census return has had, the greater the likelihood of egregious errors. If they "made their mark" on their marriage certificate ... well ... they're not going to be keeping written records in a family bible somewhere that they can consult when the census form pops through their letter box, are they??
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Some just didn't know the requested information while others just plain lied.
One of my great grandfathers knocked 5 years off his age when he married; after that his wife kept track, and he missed out on 5 years of pension.
A Thomas Rawson I researched was not actually a Rawson; that was just a name he sometimes used. Most of the rest of the time he used the surname Stafford, but was actually born a Jones! He is consistent with his date and place of birth, and at both his marriages he is Thomas Stafford Jones. I have found neither of his adopted surnames in his birth family.
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Two Londoners I know, one born 1967 in the East End and one born 1988 in Westminster say "I was born at a hospital in either Walthamstow or Leytonstone" and the other "Somewhere in Westminster". Even now it goes to show how many may not be 100% sure where they were born especially in a big city such as London.
That'll be Whipps Cross Hospital I can confidently say......(the Walthamstow/Leytonstone one)
No idea about Westminster though
Don't be so certain ... my brother (whom I shall not name as he is still alive) was born in 1966 in Walthamstow General Hospital. So that might be the hospital referred to.
Hospital caterers were on strike; nurses sent out to the local fish and chip shop to feed patients. Always arrived cold. Mother vowed never to have a hospital birth again. I was born in 1967, at home in Loughton. Family doctor was Dr Barnado (close relative ... possibly grandson, but the story varies every time I hear it of THE Dr Barnado, whose private residence was Ardmore House in Loughton ... a house which my great grandfather purchased in 1937 or 1938).
My great grandmother (NOT the wife of he who bought Ardmore House ... a different great grandmother) was a cleaner at Whipp's Cross Hospital ...
The only way my 1967 born friend will know is if he got a copy of his birth certificate, and that is probably the last thing on his mind at the end of the day, he knows his DOB which is all that counts really when required to give birth info, as he has said he is the same age as Paul Gascoigne, just a few weeks between them. We need to provide our DOB for many things but rarely our POB. And passports usually give just "Norwich" or "Walthamstow" as place of birth, not the exact location as it is not relevant.
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Oh yes I know some of them lied...some of them only on secondary records ( like census returns) about place of birth or age or how long they were married generally found those lies by researching primary records.
However I know my great grandfather lied on most records as he changed the information according to what suited him at the time and I strongly beleive his mother lied as well on his birth cert and baptism record about who his father was.
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I had to write to the Registrar General in an attempt to correct an erroneous birth certificate.
Whilst sympathetic, and preferring accuracy to prosecution for the offence, they would only make a correction on receipt of a sworn statement from the registering Mother who had lied in the first place. Needless to say that this was not forthcoming!
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I'm sure some of my ancestors thought that truth was like a piece of elastic and could be stretched to any length, and some of them thought that lying was a way of life so it didn't matter, also that it was okay to "disappear" from time to time.
One thing that I have found though is that they didn't lie about the names of their fathers, proof of marriage is important to woman and for some reason deaths are more reliable than births.
My thoughts are that apart from respectability they had other things to worry about i.e. living and surviving so it didn't matter to them.
Patty
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Sometimes it might depend on the way the question was phrased. If I'm asked where I'm from, I say (suburb of Dublin where I've lived since I was 5). However, if I'm asked where I was born, I give a different answer.
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I dont know if they lied but some seemed to have little clue as to their age but, I suppose it came down to who gave the information when the census taker came to the door. I have one who was 23 in 1840. 26 in 1850 32 in 1860 and then in 1870 they suddenly became 54 which I always figured they were. I know I have the right person on every census as they never moved.
I dont know what the laws were in early UK census records as to who could give the information and perhaps someone on this thread could tell me?
In 1850 as a example, who could give the information when the census taker came to your door because if it was me when I was 16 I do not think I would know how old my parents were although I did know where they were born so likely would of guessed at age.
As to place I can use my sister as a example. All my family was born in the same city except my sister and she was born in another province as my dad being military we were posted often. Eventually we ended up back where all the rest of the family was born and for many years she thought she was born where we were so I think it would be easy to not know.
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"Do you think you have ancestors who just lied on their forms?"
Yup, in small ways and large. One took twenty years off her true age [she must have been very young looking]. My great grandmother's birth was registered under a false name; her whole identity was fake.
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If women were marrying younger men, then they may have lied to hide the age gap. And even if a man married a woman 25 years younger he may have said he was just 15 years her senior when the census enumerator came calling. My ancestor born 1813 wed a woman born in 1839 in the 1860s. On the 1881 census he was 68 but said he was 60, and she said she was 41. His hospital admission records and death cert gave 1813 as his DOB, well they point to an 1813 birth.
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Lies........liars. Such harsh, ugly words. Branded as a liar......one would hope this is not literally, but suggests that a person was publicly identified as knowingly giving false information in a very serious matter.
False information, knowingly given to.......police......Court......Customs.....Immigration...........statutory declaration. These are serious matters which carry full weight of the law.
Look at the Census as a social / domestic record. I suspect that the enumerator carried a greater degree of accountability than did the informants.
If you are describing your family to be mum, dad and children...why would you volunteer the fact that you are not really married. It is of no consequence to the enumerator or the government.
Inaccurate information about ages are just human vanity....hardly a lie.
Inaccurate information about marital status would be done to avoid censure and embarrassment associated with common law marriages........hardly a lie.
If the Census, or BDM records show information that conflicts with information that you have from other sources, see this to be additional information that you were not expecting to see, and consider what use it might be to your family research.
My examples where incorrect information was really useful -
Alien ancestor, arriving in Australia and enlisting for WW1, needed to be a British subject. He appropriated details of his British-born mother, which details would otherwise have been impossible to locate with accuracy.
Ancestor recording birth of her child, born to unmarried parents, and needing to give marriage date and place, identified details of her own earlier, first marriage. Again, would otherwise be difficult to locate with certainty.
Ancestor dying, second generation of this family in Australia, and death certificate informed by middle aged daughter. In naming parents of the dead woman, daughter was naming her own maternal grand parents. Daughter got one parent right, other name was the daughter's paternal great grandmother's name.
So I know that, during their lifetime, the family of the deceased woman had good knowledge of their ancestors, beyond any means I might have had to know.
You can go through life never giving a false statement, but I doubt that you will have many friends.
Think....unexpected information.......and see what possibilities might follow.
And be measured in describing information as lies, and the informant to be a liar.
Be kind to your ancestors.
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When I first did genealogy I thought birthplaces on censuses, as well as other details such as age, were checked and verified by a paper trial. I then learned that the enumerators just wrote down what they were told by the householder and that is it. No questions asked.
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Where people had help filling in the forms, there must have been plenty of misunderstandings. I have a whole family recorded under the wrong surname. I know it's them because the address matches a birth certificate very close to the date of the census.
All the forenames and ages match except for the head. I guess what happened is that someone filled in the form for them. The husband was out at work, and the helper asked the wife "What is Father's name?" meaning the father of the children. She misunderstood and gave the name of her own father. So the head of household is recorded as her long-deceased father, and the whole family in her maiden surname.
I then learned that the enumerators just wrote down what they were told by the householder and that is it. No questions asked.
Well, no, they usually copied what was written on the form (which may or may not have been completed by the householders themselves). So there is mistranscription to be thrown into the mix as well.
On one census, one of my ancestors is shown as having been born in Ireland. This doesn't match up with any known facts, and when looked at in context the family entered above him is Irish, so when transcribing into his book the enumerator miscounted the lines and added one 'ditto' too many.
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Are they out and out lies, or just twisting the truth to make life more acceptable.
One of my gt grandmothers was born ( illegitimately) in a workhouse in 1868, but lived with her father ( long story) at the time of the 1871 census. This place was then given as her birthplace on the following censuses.
Then I`ve 2 sisters missing from the 1891 census. They`re not using any of the verified possible names that I have for them. It`s most frustrating as I have them, though not together, from 1861 until 1911.
I can only think that they each must have been perhaps living with a man and been using his name. They are not even with the men they went on to marry, one of them only they year after in 1892.
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My great grandfather was allocated 3 extra children and two wives by transcribers in 1871
Although relationship of all people was supposed to.be to.head of household it is pretty obvious that these were the relationships to his lodgers wife
Unfortunately on ancestry ive seen this happen a few times and people copy the transcription rather than checking original and they dont question age and surname discrepencies
At least half of trees with this ancestor have given him two of these superflous children but can be half excused because one of his daughters had the same middle name as their surname