Genealogy Chat

Has anyone found any relies on census saying they where born i.e bath when actually they where born in cornwall say for instance. Another query when you go to a registry office do they hold a national data base or just their own bmds for the area, hope this makes sense. Thankyou Spruce

People said all sorts of things on the census - some that were true and some that were not!! Same on certificates.

My grandfather said when he joined the army that he was born in Co. Durham - he was born in London but moved north when he was young so at the time perhaps he thought he had been born in Co. Durham.

A local register office will only have their own records. The GRO in Southport hold all records of births, marriages and deaths, but you can order certificates online from them.

Kath. x

Thankyou Kath for your time on this.

Spruce

With a birth you have to think about what they thought they knew...

They may have been born in Cornwall but their parents moved to Bath when they were very young. So Bath is where they remember being brought up and they assumed they were born there.

Chris :-)


** EDIT**

So slow a typer my earlier response crossed with Kath

of course, there is wrong information on all documents!


some deliberate lies, some accidental.


For example, Joe might have been born in Oldham Lancashire, but moved to Dukinfield when a very small child ........ so he believed that he was born in Dukinfield.


Or the enumerator asked "where are your from?", so householder took that to mean the place that he moved from to here ....... which may not have been the birth place


Or the enumerator couldn't understand what the birth place was (dialects, accent), or didn't know where it was, so he said something like "Where's that near then?" Householder said "near Preston", enumerator had heard of that .... so he put down Preston.

Wrong ages are very common .......... not just because of the fact that the actual census asked for the age on census night, and the modern day transcribers have changed that to year of birth ... which can be upto 2 years out, depending on date of birth vs date of census. But you have both men and women lying about their ages .... maybe they married a younger spouse. Or just plain not knowing exactly how old they are ........... age and birth date was quite literally not as important to them as it is to us.


and most of them were illiterate anyway, at least for the earlier censuses ............. so don't expect them to know their age, or how to spell their name ...... and of course they couldn't read, so they had no way of chekcing that the enumerator had written everything down correctly.



sylvia

and then of coruse you get wrong father's names, especially on marriage certificates.


That may mean that the father died (or left the family) when the child was very young, and she/he quite literally didn't remember the name

OR thought a stepfather was the real father


or, more commonly, the child was illegitimate, and made up a name to go on the certificate, 'cos it looks better to have a father.



sylvia

so if a child was adopted, and the mother lived in cornwall at the time with her family, but went to bath to have the baby, remembering at this time there was no legal adoption. The child could have been registered in Bath, but because the family who adopted the child lived in a different area would asumme,the child had been born in Cornwall so in the census it would show cornwall. Hope i'am making sense. Thankyou Spruce

SylviaInCanada

As I understand it the enumerator wouldn't complete the census household schedule unless it was exceptional circumstances.

The schedule was to be completed by the head of house, or someone who could write in the household...Or the local busy/helpful body

The Enumerator would only complete a schedule as a last resort.

Chris

Chris


certainly not on early censuses when so many people were illiterate



My belief then was that the enumerator would complete the sheet, or a child in the house who had a little learning would. Then the enumerator went back home and transferred the information from that sheet to his record book

then it was checked off ............... often the reason for the black ticks and marks that we see on images.

Then the original sheets were destroyed


The only census that we can be certain about who (allegedly) filled out the enumeration sheet is the 1911.



sylvia

Spruce

a child is supposed to be registered in the place where it was born

Sometimes, you find one that has been taken elsewhere (home or ???) to be registered, but basically it is supposed to be in the place of birth.


If the adoptive parents were not told that the baby had been born in Bath, they might well assume that it was born in Cornwall.


It does rather depend, I would think ,on when and where they picked up the child


If they got it within days of birth, and the baby had been born in Bath so no-one would know about it, then they probably should have known it was born in Bath

If they picked it up in Cornwall, and the birth was not a secret, then they could well believe that it was born in Cornwall.




sylvia

SylviaInCanada

I agree

The Enumerator collected the completed sheets from the householders or, in exceptional circumstances those completed by himself, and he transfered the information to the Enumeration Book.

The big black ticks....Always obscuring the bits of info we really want....Were made by the Clerks in London collating the info for the final Census summary.

Sylvia I know you know but for others....

The census questions were based on what the Government wanted to know at that moment in time to forward plan resourses.

Anyone interested in the background history of the census then I would suggest listening to the NA Podcast

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/

"Counting the People"

Chris

Thankyou for all your replies i'am going to follow my hunch on this one, and go later today and get the cert. Thankyou Spruce

for many years Canada has had two kinds of census forms ..... a short one that is sent to every household, and has to be filled in by or for everyone, and a long form which is sent to something like 1 in 10 households, asking for much more information

and as the Canadian government now wants to can what we call the Long Form Census, and replace it with a long form to be filled in voluntarily


most of the statistics collected by Stats Canada in future will be b****y useless!



sylvia

I certainly was n't registered where I was born. Neither was my sister. I was registered approx 30 miles distant and she about 200 miles. Likewise my parents deaths were not registered anywhere near the events.
As for the census, I've never been honest so I'd be surprised if people were way back.