Marriage certificate errors

[ryanh315]

Hi all,

I have been researching my 5x great grandfathers William Bentley's offspring. One of his sons, my 4x great great uncle, John's marriage certificate, his father William's occupation is given as a Brickmaker, however on the census before and after the marriage he is a agricultural labourer. Could the error just be on part of John, the informant?

Thank you 

[BumbleB]

You never know!  Perhaps at the time of John's marriage, William might very well have been working as a Brickmaker - OR    Census entries are 10 years apart 

[ryanh315]

Maybe! It certainly is possible  The puzzling part is that it seems quite strange to go from a labourer to brickmaker then to a labourer again!

[BumbleB]

Needs must, no Social Security in the past. 

Are we talking about a "brickmaking" area of the country   

[Top-of-the-hill]

   Most of my ancestors are just "ag labs" on censuses, especially the early ones, though they could have been doing skilled work. Your man may have been labouring in a brickworks, and was talked up a bit on the marriage record!

[Rena]

Anything can happen in the ten year period between census.

If, say, a farmer had one field that was not productive due to it being CLAY he could have made a tidy profit employing somebody to mix the clay with straw and cow dung to make bricks... and I see in some parts of the world they still do that.

[ryanh315]

That is a good point.

The sons marriage is in Liverpool, but he was born in Audlem, Cheshire. But I know the family had connections in Liverpool as one of William's grandsons, William was born in Liverpool in 1848.

[Rena]

Maybe! It certainly is possible  The puzzling part is that it seems quite strange to go from a labourer to brickmaker then to a labourer again!

In the early 1960s I had a boyfriend who grew mushrooms.  Eventually he needed to expand and he bought some cinders and bags of cement in order to make some "breeze block" bricks.  Both he and I mixed the two ingredients with water, then patted the mixture into wooden templates,   The mixture was immediately tipped out of the templates looking like professionally made breeze blocks drying in the sun.

[ryanh315]

THis is the source of my info

William   Bentley   Head   Married   Male   63   1788   Labour   Wybunbury, Cheshire, England
Martha   Bentley   Wife   Married   Female   64   1787   -   Audlem, Cheshire, England
Ann   Bentley   Grand Daughter   -   Female   8   1843   Scholar   Audlem, Cheshire, England
William   Bentley   Grand Son   -   Male   3   1848   Scholar   Liverpool, Lancashire, England