Genealogy Chat

I've just been filing (I know...shock!) and have noticed that on the 1901 census return for my ggrandparents, there is a TICK against both their names in the end column. Several other people on the page have these as well and as neither of them were deaf, blind or feeble minded, has anyone any ideas what the ticks are for? Thanks Lou

This is probably a lousy answer lou but i asked the same sort of question about hte censuses i looked at with lines through peoples names and places turn out it was done when trancribed could they be ticking so they know what they've transcribed so far. Regards simon

Lou Think Simon's right, just checking marks Margaret

I'd go with Johnathon's idea. I've seen census pages where there is a line or tick next to peoples names if they were born outside of the county that they were living in at the time of the census. Kath. x

And the damn things usually cover some vital piece of information !

Hi all Thanks for all your replies. Johnathan - spot on! Looking at it now, its all the people not born in London and its obvious now you've suggested it! Ggrandad was born Derby, his wife in Essex. The others with ticks were born Bedford and Devon. They were all living Westminster for the census Many thanks! Lou

I've been told that these were markings made by transcribers when they tranfered the information to other soures. Hence the sometimes helpful but more usually very unhelpful comments written over occupations and the thick black lines crossing out almost everything that might have been useful! Occasionally though they were spot on. I was struggling with a very bad handwriting for an ancestors occupation but the transcriber had very helpfuly crossed it all out and written 'knackers yard' over it! He was right - they were running the local knackers yard but the writing underneath (probably something like 'fell mongers') was so bad I would have never worked it out. Louise

The best and most helpful one that I've found is on one of my ancestors wives, the enumerator couldn't decide whether to put her as married, single or widowed or separated and underneath wrote 'husband's run away'! This was quite accurate and confirmed what I had been thinking! Sue G