Stick To Your Guns!

[jbml]

This is very true, Newbie.

We need to spare a thought for the next generation of researchers, too. It's going to be 30 years now before another census is published ... and the social dislocation of the second world war will make it difficult to make the leap back from 1951 to 1921 in many cases, even with the stepping-stone of the 1939 register.

We need to think about the legacy we leave them.

We need to be aware that WE are the ones who KNEW the people who lived through this census "dark age" ... and who have the family stories which have been passes to us of uncle Fred who was born in Plymouth, enlisted in the Navy in 1939, served out the war in Scapa Flow and settled in the Orkneys.

Of course, officialdom was MUCH more officious in 1951 than 1851, and the enquiries in the 1951 census were probably much deeper, and there should be plenty of other documents (but will they be able to get at them??) with places of birth accurately recorded ... so putting the pieces of the jigsaw together should be possible, But they WILL hit brickwalls ... and our family folklore may include the hints they need to break through them.

We should do what we can to preserve them ... and to make sure that if we HAVE inadvertently put some false information out there while making our rookie errors (and we ALL made them!), we try our hardest to call it back in and correct it.

[coombs]

1841 census was the first relatively useful census. Whether born in county or not was the only requirement for those born in England and Wales, but S, I or foreign parts for those born outside.

I have 3 ancestors who said "Not born in county" in 1841 but 2 of them died in 1849 and one just weeks before the 1851 census. Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Dorset are likely suspects due to birthplace of their spouse/marriage witnesses/locality of the surname, but nothing definite yet.

[Blue70]

One of the things to be positive about is how much non-census resources will be used to fill the void of no new census records. Electoral records in particular when they are available online with a search facility can pin down families location-wise with more years covered than the once a decade census.

Blue

[jbml]

Good point, blue ... although of course they will only give names, not relationships; and the under-18s won't show up at all.

For families moving from short-term tenancy to short-term tenancy, with common names, this could still make tracking movements a real pain in the you-know-what.

But as ever, genealogists will rise to the task, be investigative in their midset and creative in their thinking, and somehow they'll find their way through.

[coombs]

Also your ancestor may have sailed the 7 seas or at least travelled over the UK inbetween 2 certain censuses and yet it appears they never left home as they are in Shoreditch, London in both censuses, and they married a year after the 2nd of the 2 certain census, such as 1851 and 1861.

[Stanwix England]

My sentiments entirely, I cringe when I hear people say that they have "Traced their Family back to William the Conquerer." I have Mark Antony in my tree but he was born in the 20th century 
Carol

Given how the Mark Antony of antiquity was said to have behaved, we probably all have him in our family tree whether we know it or not. 

[melba_schmelba]

Or they accept hints of a marriage 200 miles away from where the couple lived and just take it as gospel. I.e. a James Hamilton and Mary having children in a rural North Oxfordshire parish in the mid 1700s and a researcher has accepted a Ancestry hint for a marriage down in Liskeard, Cornwall in 1745. Try much closer to home first, never just accept the "nearest fit". 

You may be able to trace to Billy The Conq but if you do find a possible link, it can take ages to verify it, and make sure it is verified first, then you can claim Danny Dyer as your cousin. 

That's nothing, just last week, I was looking at a tree with someone born in the 1740s with parents born in the 1880s .

[jbml]

Not a descendant of Jules Verne, by any chance?