Was everyone on the census???

[Finder]

Hi Guys, is absolutely everyone on the UK census?, can some individuals evade this?, was looking into a relatives movements but he never seems to be on any UK census, he worked at West India Co. docks, I'm assuming he was mainly on shipping between UK & US, story has it he left his wife & vanished, found a name matching his in a later US census but not sure yet if it's the same person

ta,

James

[MarieC]

Hi James,

Some of us on here think that we have ancestors who dropped into a black hole when the census enumerator came round!! 

Seriously - there are some sections missing from some censuses, but it also seems to be the case that people got missed off, for whatever reason! 

If your missing man disappeared in the 1850s, then maybe he did get lured to California by the gold rushes.  I'm really thinking that this may have happened to my missing man!

Good luck with finding him,

MarieC

[Sisterjane]

Hi

I think there were probably hundreds of folk missed of the cencus and for all manner of reasons.....not home on cencus night..away at war....down the pub   and then of course there would be folk who just didnt want to be accounted for for fear of the authorities etc...However an awful lot of the time people have been mis-transcribed on the cencus and are very difficult to find.

Maybe if you give details of who you are looking for..there are some very eagle-eyed rootschatters who may be able to help find them.....

Jane

[Valda]

The returns from the 2001 census

'Falling response rates in the decennial Census provide tangible evidence of loss of trust. It was initially proclaimed that the 2001 Census was ‘the most accurate census ever’. In spite of a legal obligation to return a Census form the response rate in the 2001 Census was only 94% − lower than in any previous census. The responses rate in inner city areas was much lower. There were unexplained discrepancies in the sex ratios in different age groups and it is estimated that that up to 800,000 young men were missing.'

http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/250/8/

Singleton men on every census are the most likely to have evaded the return. With earlier census returns and fewer other national (computerised makes it easier) records to compare them against , it is much more difficult to put a figure on the accuracy of each individual census.

Regards

Valda

[kerryb]

I have to say I'm surprised the figure was as high as 94%! 

I have ancestors missing from different census, some can be attributed to missing pages but one of my families just seems to be in a black hole in 1891, despite extensive searches of where they should be.  I've come to the conclusion they all went to bed early that night and didn't answer the door!

Kerry

[Finder]

Thanks for the replies, hmm, 1891 census must have been a cold night for collecting info, I counted the UK population at 2,127 ....just kidding, not a lot of family heads in the list, no guesses where they were, slurping on a nice ale somewhere

I could give his name but I really feel this guy deliberately left a cold trail & will drive anyone else nuts trying to find him, I'll keep at it for a while but if no success will try here with a name, never know one might get lucky

my mother said the granma was very poor, perhaps she was staying in a Poor Law institute for some time, there's a 10 year blank period, ah the joys of research..

James

[Siamese Girl]

Sometimes trying to work around the problem  pays off - like searching for a christian name and place of birth without a surname. The enumerator could make a mistake over a name and then so could the transcriber - there are endless ways people get lost.

Carole

[Sylviaann]

I couldn't find one of my ancestors in the 1881 census.  There was someone with his name on twice and I became convinced that the families had been wrongly transcribed.  I looked ahain for his wife and found her in a workhouse miles away from where I thought she should be and then I found her husband with a completely wrong age and another place of birth.

Keep looking or ask for help here

Sylviaann

[Willow 4873]

I have sworn blind some of my ancestors haven't been on the census and then someone on here has spotted them for me

There again no one has yet found my Mears family in 1841 either

I do think there was a lot of mistranscription of names/ages/place of birth but there were also a lot who slipped through the net

Give us the details of your missing person and we will give it a try. We all love a puzzle to solve

Willow x