Family appear on 1871 census twice

[mamor]

Is anyone able to offer an explanation as to why a family might appear on the 1871 census twice. 
I have found the following family where I expected to, at Greenham Common:

Thomas POCOCK      Head b1830 Greenham Farm Lab
Mary Ann POCOCK   Wife   b1826       "
Ann POCOCK            Dau   b1856        "
Charles POCOCK      Son   b1859        "
George POCOCK         "     b1864        "
Ann POCOCK       Mother   b1803        "
George POCOCK  Brother  b1836        "          Farm Lab  Unmarried

Ann & George were actually Mary's relatives, her maiden name was also POCOCK.

Then I found some of them living at Bishop's Green, Greenham:

Thomas POCOCK     Head         b1825  Ecchinswell    Farm Lab
Mary Ann POCOCK   Wife          b1826  Greenham
Charles POCOCK      Son          b1859       "
George POCOCK         "            b1864       "
Ann POCOCK   Mother-in-Law  b1803       "

The only difference I can see is Thomas' age (could be transcription error) and place of birth (Ecchinswell/Itchingswell was in the Chapelry of Greenham) and that daughter Ann and Brother George are not living with them. 

I found Ann and George living in St Lawrence, Reading, (also in 1871) but this time George is married with a family and is a Police Constable:

George POCOCK   Head b1836  Greenham     Police Constable
....wife and children....
Ann POCOCK         Serv  b1856  Greenham     Gen. Servant

I could accept that this is perhaps a different George and Ann, because of the discrepancies with George, but I'm quite sure all the other people are duplicated.

This family is very confusing!  Any ideas would be appreciated!

[suttontrust]

Are they in two different places?  Or is it just that the same page comes up twice on the index? 

[stanmapstone]

The census was meant to taken of each individual in the household on census night only. This means that someone who was just there for one night would be included in that household, so they would not necessarily be 'living' there.
As the census schedule was distributed in the week before the census, it could be filled in early with the people who would be expected to be there on the night. Therefore you sometimes get people enumerated twice, at their usual home and at a house they happened to be visiting. Or someone has misunderstood the instructions on filling in the householder's census schedule.


Stan

[suttontrust]

Apologies for a daft question; did you revise your post?

[mamor]

Thanks for your quick replies.

They are in 2/3 different places!

I expect I will have to put it down to human error, I just wondered if there could be a reason I wasn't aware of.  It seems strange that the brother George wouldn't have his correct occupation listed on one of the returns though.

Yes, I did revise it - I accidentally hit enter too soon!!

[alunno-a]

i have a few individuals on census returns twice- children included by the family and where they actually were such as visting Grandparents- but no duplicate whole families-- have you followed your alternative set to see if there is another family of the same names?

a digression- but I think the 2001 census is going to be a problem for this as it semed to ask for names of those "usually" at home that night- I had real trouble answering that as had children at boarding school, one would not normally have been home,but was,  one would but wasnt!

[mamor]

Hi Alunno, yes I have checked that there aren't two families the same in other years, and there aren't as far as I can see.

I can't even remember filling out the 2001 census, but since I began researching my family tree nearly three years ago, I will certainly think carefully before completing the 2011 census - I want to leave good and relevant information for future generations who might want to know about their ancestors!

Thank you for replying.

[Redroger]

From memory recent censuses have said usually resident to overcome this anomaly.

[dejay]

This is more common than expected. I have found at least 2 occurences of people being "duplicated" in 19th century censuses
Seems that the most common reason was when one / some of the family were "visiting" relatives and were recorded under both their "home" address and the address of whoever they were staying with.

It is often worth checking ALL people listed at both addresses - it may show up a "relation" with another surname who thinks they are being helpful! (This would account for why one of them also has an incorrect date of birth and place of birth listed - suggests whoever gave the info to the enumerator didn't know them that well!)

regards
dejay