Genealogy Chat

when looking for your family on the census do you include lodgers/boarders. (not family) do you keep a note of them , or do you just forget them as they are not part of your family . i have just found a family member and they have 3 boarders Hazel

Hi Hazel, I note down their names - just in case! Had a family where wife's 2nd marriage was to the lodger! Janice

Thanks for that Janice , only was'nt to sure what to do lol Hazel

I have found that quite often siblings and even parents or in-laws are listed as boarders or lodgers, because of marriage or re-marriage their surname will be different - so I often make a note of who is in the house at census time.

My ancestor had someone living with them in Canada (1881 census). Turns out, thanks to a GR member's logical thinking, that she ties my ancestor to Ireland and his birthplace!

Hi Susan , Hi Lisa, thank you both for your comments and yes you are right i have just found one of my rellies lodging with a another family and he went on to marry the daughter, so in furture i will keep everyone that is on the census Hazel

NEVER discount them.....

On a census return I found an elderly widower ancestor of mine 'lodging' with a large family, nowhere near his birthplace.

The family he was lodging with meant nothing to me, and I took no notice until years later when I was looking at it again, and the wife's birthplace kept bugging me - it was an unusual place, nowhere near the birthplace of her husband and their many children, or anywhere near where they'd always lived. It was, however, a country town very near to where my ancestor 'the lodger' had been born, some 70 odd yrs previously.


It kept niggling at me, so I felt compelled to look into it.
Turns out he, the 'lodger', was the wife's great uncle, and I had landed myself a whole new family to tie into my tree!!!!!

Happy hunting.
K

Hello Karen, it's something that i've just learned tonight dont dismiss anything until your sure lol Hazel

I always make a note of the lodgers, you never know when you might come across them later on.

I came across my 3x grandmother on the census with her family , but then she is also down as being mother to 3 other grown -up people 2males and 1 female who were living next door to her on a previous census. Hazelx