Irish Immigrants Lying about time in England?

[Konovolov]

Hi All,
I was just wondering if anyone has come across any Irish immigrant ancestors giving false birth locations for their children to appear as if they had been in England for longer than they really had. I`ve got 2 families in the 1881 census, who both state all their children - some of which should be on both the 1871 and 1861 censuses - were born in England. I was just wondering if it was possible that they were lying, for example I read that they needed to have been resident for over 5 years to claim poor support, or I just need to dig deeper and look into mistranscriptions.
Thanks,
Craig

[Little Nell]

My husband had a gt gt granfather who changed his name from Dennis McCarthy to James Carter. He consistently says he was born in Holborn but I can't find a birth.

[Olde Crone Holden]

People often said they were born where they were living on a census because they felt that that would give them some kind of "right" to be there.

Sometimes the enumerator just SAID everyone was born where they were living - I suspect this for some of my familes, where the wqhole page has a place of birth at the top of the page and everyone is dittoed down the page. Maybe they WERE all born there - but maybe they weren't. Who cared? No-one much, certainly not the statisticians.

Irish people tended, like any other group of immigrants, to say they were born where they were living, because of the age old problem of people not welcoming immigrants. There was a strong anti-Irish feeling in the late 1800s.

Remember also, that all census, except for the 1911, are transcriptions of the original household schedules and we do not know how accuratrely they were copied out by the clerks involved.

Nothing ever written down can be considered a cast-iron fact, ever. You have to gather information from many sources before you can come to any sort of conclusions.

OC

[Konovolov]

Thanks OC,
On the page the all of the parents are stated as Ireland, differing parts of the north east etc, but all the kids that are down as scholars are born in Newcastle. Oh well, I`d better get trawling!
Craig

[Janet]

As OC has already said there could be many reasons for saying born in a particular place but for interest do remember at least two points regarding the Irish in England.

The first is that there was much migrationary work between Ireland and England for seasonal work and that could be anything you like to think of, but was often agricultural work because that was what most Irish people knew about and the rates of pay were better in England back in the 1800's than they were in Ireland, and yes they did go backwards and forwards in their thousands so children may have just about been born in this country but then may have travelled back to the home town/village soon after birth, to be christened in Ireland, so may have genuinely thought that they were born in Ireland, particularly if they were not registered in the UK, which many Irish people did not bother to do. Always remember that for the Irish, Baptism was always much more important and where you were baptised was usually the place of birth to most Irish people, so don't always think the very worst of your Irish Ancestors.

Another point might be that if one of your Irish ancestors wanted to join the navy or any other establishment which was better to be English than Irish then it often looked better to have an English birthplace and even I can fully remember what it was like to be discriminated against when I had to complete a form to enter the Higher Civil service and put down the fact I had an Irish father!! Despite my good A Levels I was never offered an interview! Would not happen today, but that is recent memory. My OH had an Irish Great Grandfather who joined the navy as a boy and did well for himself but he put down as being born in Bridport. He is not on the 1851 census which he should be. He is entering the navy at 12+ and a mysterious "Uncle" is signing him away into the navy. An English birth certificate has never been found. We do know that his family was part of this migratory movement backwards and forwards from Ireland to Dorset.

Janet