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Census gold - success

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  • Census gold - success

    I have to share a woo-hoo moment...

    Last night I was hunting a family on my wife's side, I had only fairly little information - a few family names, a rough DOB from a marriage certificate and a location.

    I located a 1911 census record, and the head of the househld had filled it 'incorrectly'. He had faithfully recorded all their children even the dead, moved on and married children. Instead of just the parish of birth, he wrote in the address of each birth. All this was crossed out by presumably the census collector, but to me it was gold.

    The FMP subs are paying off!

  • #2
    ;D
    Wow. Congrats! Wish mine would have made those mistakes!

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    • #3
      Thank goodness for people who don't fill in forms properly!

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      • #4
        its lovely when you get that 'eureka' moment isn't it??.. enjoy Graeme! :smilee:
        Julie
        They're coming to take me away haha hee hee..........

        .......I find dead people

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        • #5
          Make the most of it as you are unlikely to be so lucky again

          margaret

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          • #6
            How lovely is that.

            Wish I had a few rellies that couldn't fill forms in correctly!!
            Lin

            Searching Lowe, Everitt, Hurt and Dunns in Nottingham

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            • #7
              how handy for you , I have had a couple who also gave a couple of the dead childrens names but not all that info.

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              • #8
                And there is the occasional widow who gives these details.
                Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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                • #9
                  I've been thinking about this occasionally during the day: what a gift thru time! A time capsule!And using the government to pass on the family story. Makes me think we should all corrupt the fields we filled out on census forms, and fill the edges with little notes!

                  Except, I doubt any future census records will be handwritten! Creative uses not permitted.
                  Last edited by PhotoFamily; 15-08-12, 05:19. Reason: finally remember the phrase....

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                  • #10
                    that's really lucky yes!! wish I could be so lucky with some of mine!!! lol 'specially those elusive ones who don't appear to be anywhere... then pop up on a census fully grown and married!!! sigh...

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                    • #11
                      Congrats Graeme! I am happy for you.

                      I too had a great find day-before-yesterday. I knew my maternal ggrandmother was a Shearer, and thru census and BMD data I had found a prominent Shearer family in the right time & place. I had TONS of circumstantial evidence these were my ancestors (my ggrandmother's marriage record showing the first names of this families parents, right town, my grandmother's correspondence referring to an 'Aunt Kate' when the questionable Shearer family had a Catherine), but nothing that would conclusively say they were 'my' Shearers. Finally, after going thru each of the siblings, on the youngest I found a marriage to a name I recalled hearing, and then a birth of a name I remembered from my youth. Sure enough, the child born in 1900 was the same woman my mother corresponded with! Census data confirmed my personal recollections from 50 years ago. I was so jaded looking for this confirmation that when I found that familiar name it took me a moment to realize this was the 'whoo-hoo' moment I'd been looking for!

                      Congrats again Graeme. I share your excitement.

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                      • #12
                        Graeme referred to his ancestor including a dead child on the census. I also just ran across one of those. I have the death record showing January; then the May census included his name. Was it common, legal, or correct to include a deceased family member? This was a Canadian census in case that makes any difference.

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                        • #13
                          I had a similar lucky break - an elderly couple had a widowed son and also his son staying with them in 1911.
                          It was great to come across the son (abroad in previous census years) and he had filled in that he had two sons, both still living. I knew about the one with father & the grandparents, but the other one was a complete surprise - when I eventually found him (staying with an aunt) it stated he'd been born abroad; no wonder I hadn't come across the birth registration when scouring the usual sources! Once I knew where to look, I found him in the consular births:D

                          Jay
                          Janet in Yorkshire



                          Genealogists never die - they just swap places in the family tree

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Prairie Chicken View Post
                            Graeme referred to his ancestor including a dead child on the census. I also just ran across one of those. I have the death record showing January; then the May census included his name. Was it common, legal, or correct to include a deceased family member? This was a Canadian census in case that makes any difference.
                            Not sure about Canada, but censuses are about current residents! UK census is based on who was at that address on the specified census day. Definitely implies the living!

                            US census is based on usual residence on the census day. US census is used to determine the number of delegates a state sends to Congress, so it counts living people! There were "mortality" schedules for some earlier census years - I haven't ever figured out why - but they were specifically for people who had died the year before.

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                            • #15
                              Yes, all of my experience with Cdn. census is that it is for living folks. I just wondered if it happens that bereaved mothers might want their lost child counted and so include the child if they can get away with it. That's just a hunch on my part--so I was wondering if it happens or not.

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