Why is My Ancestor Missing from the Census?
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- Опубликовано: 29 авг 2024
- Even though there are people who should, in theory, be easy to find, sometimes it seems that an ancestor is missing from the census. Why is this? There could be one or several reasons - and in this video I show you the long story of how I eventually found my grandfather, despite several problems...
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Watching your video, I had a thought. In the 1861 Census, Mary Ann Durrant is missing, Thomas is listed with their two youngest children, but I haven't been able to find Mary Ann, their living in Bethnal Green, I found Mary Ann with the two boys on the 1871 Census in Southwark, Thomas died about 1867 (have to confirm death), but the thought I had was, maybe she is listed under her maiden name, Porter. I don't know why I didn't think of this before?
It's possible, perhaps if she was visiting family, or was estranged from her husband. Make sure you've tried different spellings of Durrant too.
Always press the older members, sometimes a word triggers a memory that they had forgotten or didn't think relevant. My Welsh ancestors became easier when i asked why there was someone in the family called/nicknamed "Grancha".. She wasn't sure... interestingly this is welsh slang for Grandfather...I told her this and she was somewhat taken back. Seems like the ancestor was there all the time but mistaken for a "friend" of the family.
Thanks - that's a great story! Good point about triggering memories.
Also depends on how much of the truth your older relatives are willing to pass on .........
Way back in the 30's my wife's great aunt got married and had three children before having fourth child whose birth certificate only showed the mother's maiden name.
The couple remained married for many years after, dying in the mid 80's.
The child's death certificate showed her as dying age nine in a different city under the guardianship of a woman whose name wasn't known to us but the child also now bore her last name.
Delicate probing questions brought blank stares, non of your business or let sleeping dogs lie from older family members so perhaps she was adopted at birth.
Enumerators and transcribers can make it a real challenge in addition to those who just save records with variant spellings or name changes without explanations of their thought process. I've been guilty of not checking all the names in a household let alone those in neighbouring houses and now make a habit of noting the address for every event whether it be a birth, census, burial or probate along with scrolling to the adjacent images and looking for other family members living nearby. It's often the case where a child was staying with family & presumptions or misunderstandings by the enumerator can result in a different surname and relationship being recorded.
One of the more common missing census issues centres around younger unmarried females who went to work in service and are noted in the wrong surname, sometimes they are really hard to solve but again siblings, step siblings and other family can be the key to finding them. Some just don't want to be found but there's nothing wrong with parking them for a while and looking again at a later date. New and/or additional information might come to light, I've tracked a couple down based on names of witnesses to marriages that took place around the time of a census.
Thanks for this - you're quite right. And we must always remember that names were spoken to the enumerators, and they wrote them down the way they heard them - which is why there can be such variants in spellings. Checking the nearby neighbours in census records is always a good idea - very often you'll find families living on the same street, and a child will often turn up staying with aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. And Yes! ALWAYS check the witnesses on marriages! Thank you.