Question for Census Experts

[david64]

Here is one for anyone who thinks of themselves as well versed in all that is the census (UK).

I have an ancestor, I have found in the 1881 census, working as a servant on the farm of Thomas Hamer Jones (d. 1901). She is listed as:

Ann E. Hopkin, born about 1861 in Aberhafesp, Montgomeryshire (near Newtown).

I am wondering what are the chances of her actually being Annie Hopkins or maybe just Anne? Or were middle initials usually used where a full name was given, but the enumerator decided to abbreviate it?

Also, she was definetley not born in Aberhafesp - at least not as anything Hopkin(s), which was a very uncommon surname in the country at the time. I am told she was actually from South Wales. What would people think the most likely case is in this case? Could anything just been put down because Ann Hopkins was not present? Or is it more likely that the enumerator put that down after hearing a place name like Aberystwyth or Aberfan.

----

In another case, I have an ancestor listed as a boarder at the age of 9 in the home of the people who looked after him. Is that likely to be the case? He was not "officially" adopted and he kept his mother's surname.

[avm228]

Hi

Regarding the Ann E. Hopkins enumeration: it was not the case that the enumerator "heard" things and then wrote them down.  The enumerator collected completed forms from householders, and copied from them (verbatim, so far as possible) on to the schedules which we see for censuses up to & including 1901. If the householder's handwriting was poor the enumerator may have had difficulty in making out what was written down - errors sometimes crept in in this way.

Householders didn't always know their servants' details (as to name, age, birthplace) accurately.  There are all sorts of reasons why erroneous information might have been written down by the householder about a servant.

[avm228]

In another case, I have an ancestor listed as a boarder at the age of 9 in the home of the people who looked after him. Is that likely to be the case? He was not "officially" adopted and he kept his mother's surname.

It seems to have been the norm (though not invariable) for 19th century "adoptees" (not of course adopted in the modern legal sense), and what we would now call foster children, to keep their birth surname.  They were variously described on the censuses - sometimes boarder, sometimes nurse child, sometimes adopted daughter/son, sometimes daughter/son, & no doubt there were other descriptions too.  I have examples of all of the above in my tree. 

[david64]

Thanks for your info. I guess her name was likely 'Ann E.' then as  Thomas Hamer Jones had legible handwriting. Hopefully that should help narrow things down a bit :|

Out of interest, how are you faring in tracing the ancestry of your "adopted" ancestors?

[avm228]

Out of interest, how are you faring in tracing the ancestry of your "adopted" ancestors?

None of my direct ancestors was (to my knowledge) adopted, but it's been interesting following up the adoptions which appear laterally in the family.  My ggg-grandparents, who for some reason only had one natural child (a son) took in, successively, two infant girls (sisters) from the local Mint Street workhouse - initially described as nurse children and later as adopted daughters.  The little girls' natural parentage was easy to trace as they had retained their unusual surname - I have the certificates of their births to a married woman in the workhouse.  The natural mother can be found alive and out of the workhouse on the censuses, working as a laundress, perhaps simply too poor to bring up her children.

As another example, my gg-grandmother was widowed young and, although her two toddler boys stayed with her, her 8 yr old daughter soon appeared far from home in a census as an adopted daughter. It took a lot of detective work to ascertain that this geographically-distant adoptive family was indeed related by marriage, the adoptive mother being the child's deceased father's aunt's husband's niece (or something similarly involved - I don't have the details to hand).

[carol8353]

Thanks for your info. I guess her name was likely 'Ann E.' then as  Thomas Hamer Jones had legible handwriting. Hopefully that should help narrow things down a bit :|

The writing you are seeing on the census will not be Thomas Jones handwriting,but that of the enumerator.......just incase you thought otherwise.

Carol

[david64]

The writing you are seeing on the census will not be Thomas Jones handwriting,but that of the enumerator.......just incase you thought otherwise.

Yes. I have seen writing of his from elsewhere.

[carol8353]

That's okay then 

[stanmapstone]

Hi

Regarding the Ann E. Hopkins enumeration: it was not the case that the enumerator "heard" things and then wrote them down. 

In certain circumstances he would 

From the Act for taking the Census in 1881.
The enumerators shall visit every house in their respective divisions and shall collect all the schedules so left within their division from house to house, so far as may be possible, on Monday the fourth day of April in the said year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, and shall complete such of the schedules as upon delivery thereof shall appear to be defective, and correct such as they shall find to be erroneous, and shall copy the schedules, when completed and corrected, into books provided for that purpose.



Stan