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« on: Sunday 14 March 10 23:17 GMT (UK) »
Hi Bo
Many thanks for your reply. I didn't think about Harry having to be a property owner rather than a lodger, or, in fact when women were able to vote - that explains a lot. Many thanks.
I have found out that 118 Hockley Hill was, in fact, listed as a laundry in the census of 1911 - altho' by August 1911 it was residential as this was my grandfather's address on his marriage certificate where he was presumably staying with his sister, Leah.
I have tried every combination I can of the family name in the 1911 census including just looking for Leah by her Christian name only. I have traced some of their childrens' names (as informants of their deaths) and cannot find them in the census either! So I think they somehow got missed. Perhaps they were in the middle of moving to the new property at Hockley Hill. I believe the 1911 census forms were completed by the occupier themselves and wonder whose responsibility it was to return them? If it was the occupiers the forms could have gone astray in the move. I haven't yet received the childrens birth certificates, which took place in 1903 and 1904, but think they will show Hockley Hill. Harry died there in 1943 so I think they were there from LATE 1911 onwards only leaving a small gap from their marriage in 1902 to at least August 1911 that I do not know where they are living, so I am happy about that, especially as she was a Smith, in service, in Birmingham, I think I have been very lucky! I have given up on her sister Lizzie, who was also in service in Birmingham - Lizzie Smith seems to have been as popular as John Smith! So many thanks for all the help received.