* Help working out a name on the 1851 census

[Hannah1871]

My gggg grandfather's occupation was listed as 'shoe maker master employing' on the 1851 census. There were also 3 other shoemakers listed at the same address one was his son, one a cousin and the other a visitor. It is the vistor's name that I am having trouble working out. His name is listed as 'Alegor Offner' by Ancestry.co.uk which has been transcribed wrongly. I think the surname looks like 'Officer' but I cannot work out the first name. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Tracey

ID:1858

[rbryce]

How about Alexander, i.e. Alex followed by a 'superscript' r?  I think this is fairly common practice in Scotland.  There are plenty of Alexanders in St Ninians.
It's always useful to have a look at other names on the page to check out guesses by comparing with something which is more obvious.

[SunnyLady]

That's my thought too for the first name.

Officer sounds a bit odd for a surname - but not got any other solution as that is certainly what it looks like! Is the census available on another site so that you can see what they make of it?

[MarkB]

I would say that was Alexander Officer.
Using superscripts was very common in the earlier censuses.
However, remember that what you are looking at are the transcriptions from the census form originally completed by the family who may not have been able to write and the transcriber has to interpret that.

[nsw]

I would agree with Alexander Officer. In the 1861 census for Manchester there is a family from Ireland, James and Mary Officer with a daughter Agnes. James is a boot maker. In the 1841 census for Manchester they appear with a number of children including an Alexander Officer who is the right age to be the one in the 1851 census.

[Hannah1871]

Thank you all so much for your help. It seems that Alexander Officer is the name everyone seems to agree with.
Thanks also to Nick for taking the time to look up the Officer family in the previous and next census.
Kind regards
Tracey