Enumerators do help........Sometimes

Post by **steveabye** » 24 Jul 2008 15:50

Enumerator for 1891 census put the full address of birthplace, pity he didn't note down the exact date of birth.....Oh well! can't have it everything. [rolleyes]

ID:2966

YouTube · Post by **Jane** » 25 Jul 2008 11:14

It would also be handy if they wrote down the parents names, and places of birth as well. [grin] [grin]

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 25 Jul 2008 16:44

On one census return in my collection, the enumerator has written 'illegitimate child' in the occupation field.

Jan

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 27 Jul 2008 06:54

jmurphy said:
On one census return in my collection, the enumerator has written 'illegitimate child' in the occupation field.

Maybe he was the father...

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 27 Jul 2008 14:04

Tombaston said:

jmurphy said:
On one census return in my collection, the enumerator has written 'illegitimate child' in the occupation field.

Maybe he was the father...

In this case, I don't think that's true, but that's an interesting suggestion! (I suspect in this case, it's a small village, so the child's father was probably something 'everyone knew'.)

Jan

Post by **steveabye** » 28 Jul 2008 16:54

I must be hitting it lucky, now got 1901 Census with the wife's maiden name included. [grin]

Tombaston · Post by **Tombaston** » 28 Jul 2008 20:07

jmurphy said:
In this case, I don't think that's true, but that's an interesting suggestion! (I suspect in this case, it's a small village, so the child's father was probably something 'everyone knew'.)

Jan

I did meant it slightly tongue in cheek, but I hope you guessed that. Small villages can be very interesting, I looked at the description of the district for one and found the enumerator was my 4g uncle.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » 29 Jul 2008 07:06

Many years ago I went door to door collecting Census information. When we were interviewed for the 'position' we were told that we weren't allowed to work in our own area and were given an area where it was thought that we didn't know anyone, if by chance we called on someone we knew we had to give them an envelope for their Return and it had to go back with our paper-work unopened. So no little comments from me when 'my' Returns are made public!!!!

Margaret

AnneEast · Post by **AnneEast** » 29 Jul 2008 10:31

I had an 1891 entry for some of my family and the enumerator had drawn a map at the start of the section to show where all the streets and courts off the streets were - very helpful, specially since the area has since been flattened.

Anne

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 29 Jul 2008 12:44

On the question of maps, does anyone know if there are maps of the ennumeration districts?

I tried to draw up one from the description of the various ennumeration districts in an urban area but found it was quite difficult due to renaming of streets, new streets, old streets being demolished etc.

Regards,

Gerry

ChrisBowyer · Post by **ChrisBowyer** » 29 Jul 2008 14:47

There are maps of civil parish boundaries at http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk, which are often used by the enumerators to describe the area they covered. Failing that, it's sometimes helpful to look at the description of surrounding areas to see how they described it too.

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 29 Jul 2008 14:57

Chris,

I was actually trying to produce a map of the Ennumeration Districts for Gillingham, Kent using the descriptions at the start of each District. In 1881 there are more than 23 ennumeration districts for Gillingham but trying to fit them all together is no mean task!

Gerry

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 29 Jul 2008 15:23

Tombaston said:
I did meant it slightly tongue in cheek, but I hope you guessed that. Small villages can be very interesting, I looked at the description of the district for one and found the enumerator was my 4g uncle.

Oh, yes, I was amused. [smile]

And it was a good reminder to everyone to pay attention to ALL of the information on the page, not just the lines that we think belong to our own families.

Jan

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 29 Jul 2008 15:52

Gerry Newnham said:
On the question of maps, does anyone know if there are maps of the ennumeration districts?

I tried to draw up one from the description of the various ennumeration districts in an urban area but found it was quite difficult due to renaming of streets, new streets, old streets being demolished etc.

This task is much easier if you can get a map close to the period when the census was taken -- have you tried finding an older map?

I was lucky early on and discovered via ABE books a map of my husband's father's hometown from 1910. By comparing that map to the current ones, we were able to see that the name of one street I had not been able to find via Google Maps had been changed.

After that, I discovered that one can get lists of changed street names for the US via Steve Morse's One Step Web Pages http://www.stevemorse.org/.

In the US we are also lucky to have William Dollarhide's book Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Censuses, 1790-1920:

http://www.genealogical.com/

A similar book for the UK would be useful indeed.

While doing a search via Google I discovered this archived forum thread discussing the same problem on British-Genealogy.com:

http://www.british-genealogy.com/forums ... t-540.html

The participants talk about the RG 18 series of maps at the National Archives, and various old-map vendors.

Jan

gerrynuk · Post by **gerrynuk** » 29 Jul 2008 17:33

Jan,

Thanks - I didn't know such maps were available at TNA.

Alan Godfrey Maps have quite a good range but don't yet cover the area I am interested in.

Regards,

Gerry

jmurphy · Post by **jmurphy** » 31 Jul 2008 03:07

I've had the same luck also (finding a promising new source / reference work which doesn't cover the area or period I need).

For more modern times, it's also interesting to see if the town has property tax records and maps online.

In my case, the information that the house was built in 1920 was a hint that I might not find the family at that address in 1910 (the neighborhood may not have existed yet).

For other addresses, I had a hint that some buildings from 1905 no longer existed because the US Postal Service address finder had the addresses marked as 'undeliverable'.

Checking the tax maps confirmed that the parcels no longer have a building on them.

My other tip would be to set up a search on eBay for the area you need. You never know what might turn up.

Jan

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