The Census: "love thy neighbour"?!

[CelticAnnie]

I've always found it interesting to have a nose at who my ancestors' neighbours were, while looking up census entries.  It's odd to think my ancestors would have known many of these people -- some of them, possibly, very well; and their various occupations also help to give a feel of the neighbourhood that my ancestors were living in. 

But sometimes it's gone further: discovered, in the 1901 census, the (fortunately distinctively-named) young lady, working in the draper's shop just a couple of shops away from the home of an ancestor who emigrated to Australia a couple of years later, who then married him in Australia in 1906.  Without that entry, I would never have known how they met.  The same census also shows the family my grandmother was later born into living next door to the married big brother of my yet-to-be-born grandfather -- did the two know each other as they were growing up, I wonder, when my grandfather perhaps visited his brother?!   And the marriage certificate of my great grandfather and his first wife reveals that they (very conveniently) were next-door neighbours, too!

Just wondered if anybody else had made any interesting/useful discoveries amongst their ancestors' neighbours.

[Rishile]

Hi CelticAnnie

I have a couple of incidents like this - but not as good as your Australian one.

I have one family that lived a couple of doors away from each other and two of the children from one family married two from the other.  That's quite sweet to see because they were obviously childhood sweethearts - or maybe not knowing small children.

I thought I was just being nosey when I check out the neighbours - now I can call it research 

Rishile

[CelticAnnie]

definitely research!

and another thing that study of the censuses really brings home is how different (much larger!) the average household was in earlier times from households today. 

[Nick29]

Well, I have to say that I didn't pay too much attention to my ancestors' neighbours until I embarked on a mission to find out a bit more about my father's ancestors that I was unable to find online.  To make a long story short, I ended up with a list of people who shared graves with my father's ancestors, and although some of them were obviously family, a few turned out to be just friends and neighbours, and since having that list, I've found the names cropping up here there and everywhere 

[CelticAnnie]

sharing GRAVES with friends and neighbours? oooh-er, Nick; that certainly takes "love thy neighbour" to a whole new level!

[Nick29]

In the area where my dad's ancestors lived, everyone who lived in the parish had the right to be buried free of charge in the churchyard, but that did not guarantee an individual grave.  Shared graves are not at all uncommon.

[CelticAnnie]

well, you live and learn -- and I guess that's what I come to this site for!  

[RedMystic]

This is tangentially related. In the 1881 census I found all the children (sans 1) listed with a family that lived 15 minutes walk from the house I know to have been their parent's home. I thought it must be a transcription error.

There is only one person to speak to now who had any knowledge of those of that time, and she knows nothing of the family connection to the family the boys were with in the 1881 census.

I wrote it off as a transcription error, but just a few days ago, I found a US emigration record for the eldest brother of my gg grandfather. He left with a man with the same surname (not a common one) as the adults in the 1881 census.

I may never know the connection, but there is something there. 

[arkay]

My great-grandmother was born out of wedlock, but luckily for me, she named her father on her marriage certificate.  So I checked the census more closely around the time of her birth, and sure enough, there he was at #22 - living right across the road from her mother at #21.   

Take a good look at your ancestors' neighbours!