Genealogy Chat

Hi my g.grandad is on the census in 1871. Under occupation it has "Traveller in (looks like) Leeds. He was living in Sheffield at the time of the census. Well, maybe just for the night! So was he a salesman or a Gypsy?

Who knows? Can you find him on other documentation - a wedding cert (his own or his children's), or his death cert, or another census, which might shed light on his occupation? Who is on the census next to him - lots of other "travellers", what is his address? nell

The house he spent the night of the census in was in Tatham Street Castleton, Lancashire. Not Yorkshire where Leeds is. There is one older woman who is head of household and the rest are all young guys in 20's down as lodgers. No travellers though - only him as traveller. I dont have any other info that has anything on regarding occupation. I have only recently found him. He died when he was 39 leaving wife and two children. In the 1881 census he is down as a Cashier though! It's very strange....he was born in Sheffield.

As his address isn't a field and he's staying in a lodging house I would guess he was a salesman. As you've got the year he died it would probably be worth getting his death cert to see what that says. nell

Thanks will do. If he was a Gypsy can I go claim a caravan and field of my own? Could do with a nice field......

I would have thought a gypsy wouldnt have been keen on having his details taken by the authorities. Think he was a travelling salesman who settled down to being a cashier when the travelling got a bit much for him!

Looks to me like a Travelling Salesman. They tended to use words like Itinerant for what we call New Age Travellers and Gypsies. Jim (Who's ambition is to buy a Mobile Home and become an Old Age Traveller)

could it be Seeds? Greenhouses and conservatories and exotic plants were a Victorian craze