Feb 2010
Our expert Stephen Rigden answers your questions:
‘I hope you can please advise me about the following. I cannot find the entire family of my great grandfather in the 1901 census. I have them in the 1891 and 1911 censuses.
This involves father, mother and seven children, the eldest child being born in 1884 (he is shown at home still in 1911 census). I have dates from a birth certificate of the seventh child in 1897 in Islington, London and the date 1904 from the death certificate of the 2nd child in Cambridge. He was a journeyman builder-cum-bricklayer - is it possible for a whole family to disappear from the census?
Help please, I have tried looking for all the family separately on census searches and can find nothing.’ From Terry
Steve says: “The short answer is yes but it is not a simple answer, as the reasons for absence, or apparent absence, are many. Here are 10 to get you thinking. I am sure that some you will be able to discount as impossible or implausible from your knowledge of the family.
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I would like to add another possible, if unlikely, reason. I spent a long time searching for my paternal great grandmother in the 1891 Census (I had found her in 1881,1901 and 1911). Eventually I found her living under an assumed name!
I had a similar family, it turned out that the parents were never married and, for the one census when they were all together, they lived under his surname, but for the others, under her surname. It took me ages to find them (couldn’t even find birth certificates) until I found out the mother’s surname from a workhouse record. Most of the children married under HIS surname, but none were born that way and no father was given on ANY of the certificates!
Also consider that if they went into a workhouse, some institutions only recorded them as initials, not full names.
My paternal great grandmother was not using her maiden name, her married name or the name of her future husband - it seems to have been a totally made-up name.
Her future husband (a widower, living at the address in question) was also using an alias (although there may have been some family connection with his alias). His name changed in the 1881 Census but they both reverted to their proper surnames when they married in 1896. All v. curious.
She was listed as ‘visitor’, along with two of her children.
“Some parts of each census were simply and irretrievably lost at some date prior to the microfilming of the originals. For 1901, for example, parts of … and Hovingham (Yorkshire) are known to be missing.”
Hell’s teeth! that explains a lot. I have been searching for people in Hovingham on and off for five years - this explains a lot.
In the matter of mistranscription (at whatever stage) it is worth trying other online services as well as Find My Past (which, in my experience is, incidentally, the most reliable). You also need to bear in mind that a surname in 1901 would have been written in a variant of copperplate script. If you half-close your eyes when looking at the surname in the handwritten records you do have and use your imagination to guess what common surnames might be represented by such a pattern of scrawl, you have the candidates for surnames which you should search in other censuses. Using this method, I recently found “Hewson” appearing as “Harrison”, for example.
Hi
does anyone know if there are any unpublished or lost 1881 censuses and where I can find this info.Possibly Warwickshire/Birmingham or London areas.My Ancestors occupation was consistant to a cab man.I have him in Birningham 1871 and London in 1891 but no sign of him in1881 anywhere.
My maternal great-grandparents and granparents kept changing their surname - not a lot, but enough to cause confusion. In fact, my grandfather married under one alternative of the name, then all the 8 children were registered under the other name. It was not due to a mistranscription, as both versions of the name are clearly legible in all the original censuses from 1851 to 1911.
Who do I think I am? Well, I’m not sure now.
never give up on searching for mis-transcriptions. I finally found MARY BARROWCLOUGH indexed as PORARY BARNOWSKY!
Methods I have used to find “missing” ancestors on a census:
1. search not just the head of household, but all members
(I have one family in 1861 where I have yet to locate the husband, but found the wife and daughters living in different households, likely the husband was either working abroad, in hospital, or in jail).
2. search using only the first name, year of birth, and location. If the original is hard to read, the indexer may get the first name correct, especially if it’s a common name, but miss on the surname. (This works if the person was in the same town the census before and after, and you can limit the search to the location, but not if they moved around)
I had been looking for the LUCKIN family in Chatham, Kent for some time. I had found the family in 1881 census and 1891 census, but could not find them in 1901. George died in 1901 and I was able to find the address from his death certificate - this then enabled me to find that address on the census. The family was listed as JACKIN not LUCKIN.
I had problems finding my ancestors as names had been incorrectly recorded in the 1841 census as Bridges instead of Briggs.
I have come across problems researching the 1891 census for Swindon, Wlitshire…. I have been researching the surnames Humphries and Kibblewhite.
I can find my Great-Grandfather Edward and his father Edwin, but not his Mother Margaret and a few of his sisters and a brother.
I can find no trace of my Great-Great-Grandfather Hugh Kibblewhite and his wife Mary Jane in 1891, but I have them in every census from 1861,71,81 and in 1901… a lot of records I have looked for in 1891 in Swindon and surrounding villages like Purton, Lydiard Millicent and Lydiard Tregorze seem to be missing.
Has anyone else come across similar problems??
Bibz - I have some Humphries on my tree. The tree is stored on genesreunited - let me know if you’d like to see it. Either on genes site (maiden name) or facebook (married name).
I did not realize my Lewington family dissappeared until I tripped over a divorce petition. Married 1850 in Islington, London son born 1851. Another child born 1854. The 1882 divorce petition stated she and her husband had lived “at Hornsey Road Islington Middlesex at New York and other places in the United States of America at No 3 Smiths Place Kennington Lane..”. Sure enough William Ester and infant son arrived in New York January 1852! Need to find their return trip!
Locating children on the census is the best way of finding the family if you do not find the parents. Researching for the adults in the 1881 Census was a blank but when I looked for the children they were living with their re-married grandmother (different name) but all other details were correct and I found their step grandfather. I think the parents were in Malta, as that is where the next child was born.
I found Harry Skillings transcribed as Harry. S. Killings and Pounds transcribed as Rounds.
Robert
I would go for the mis-transcription. I have had two.
One grandparents (Bennett) found in both 1891 and 1911 and missing on 1901 on Ancestry found on Findmypast site. Using the address I then found them on Ancestry and can only say the transcriber was having a bad day.
The second one is a spelling varient of Shields/Sheilds (Scottish census).
Good luck
Sue
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