Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy: The definitive reference guide to tracing your family history. Nick Barratt
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this data, and showed that in 1888 Wilkinson Oddie married Cecilia Heneghan, a 21-year-old cotton weaver. She died in 1897 aged 31 and the cause of death shows it was a result of childbirth, a common danger at that time.
Once you’ve found an ancestor on one census return, it should be possible to locate them on earlier ones. Therefore, given the amount of information already gleaned about Wilkinson Oddie, it was fairly easy to locate him, aged 16, living at home with his parents in 1881. They were John Oddie (listed as Oddy in the census records) and his wife Mary. Wilkinson lived at home with six siblings, the oldest being 21 and the youngest only 1 month old.
By repeating this pattern, it was possible to track down John Oddie in earlier census returns as well, such as 1851. He was found living at home in Over Darwen, Blackburn, aged 15 and already working in a cotton mill, with his parents Wilkinson Oddie senior, aged 41, and his wife Mary. Wilkinson Oddie senior was born in Mitton, Yorkshire, in about 1811, and armed with this information a further search of parish registers was possible to locate earlier branches of the family.
Always remember that there have been many stages that the data has gone through to reach your computer screen and errors could have occurred at each step. If you have a valid street address for your ancestor, perhaps from a certificate, it may be worthwhile searching microfilms manually under this address if you are having difficulties locating your ancestor online.
Inaccurate Information Provided by Ancestors
It was not uncommon for ancestors to provide inaccurate details when filling in the schedule forms. This could be for a variety of reasons:
• A different name was given. Although your ancestor’s official name might have been Jennifer Sarah Marks, she could have been commonly known as Sally and be recorded under that name. People could always use their middle names as their first names or vice versa. Check both if you are having problems.
• Ages were inaccurate. Sometimes teenagers would register as older than they were so that they could work at an earlier age than was legal. Other times, people would give younger ages for reasons of vanity (especially when there were large age gaps in marriages). Alternatively, people might simply not remember their exact year of birth.
• Covering up family secrets. The most common secret a family might wish to conceal would be illegitimacy, and information might have been tweaked to hide this. For example a child may appear to be a year or two younger on the census than was the case, to mask a birth outside wedlock. Another possibility is an untruthful relationship, whereby an illegitimate grandchild of the head of the household may be recorded as their child to avoid scandal.
Bear all this in mind when searching for your ancestor. Most of the search facilities on the various websites allow people to filter the results with as much or as little detail as possible so you can allow for such inaccuracies when searching.
Your Ancestor Was Not Recorded on the Census
Although the theory was that every person living in the country at the time should be recorded, sometimes people slipped through the net. The early censuses attracted much suspicion as to why the state needed to record such personal information in the first place. Consequently people were often very reluctant to fill out the relevant forms. For example, a census return for Westminster in 1841 includes a margin note written by the enumerator stating that the head of the household refused to provide any information.
There may always be a simple explanation, in the sense that they were simply not present at home on the night the enumerator came to collect the forms, and failed to fill out a form where they were staying. Of course, the opposite is true as well, and some people appear more than once in the same census – once at their formal place of residence, and another at their lodgings whilst travelling around the country.
Additionally, babies and young children may be omitted as some parents felt that information should not be provided until the child was baptized. Alternatively, parents may not have detailed every child to avoid accusations of overcrowding. There is also the factor of human error; where enumerators had to record the information themselves (in cases of illiteracy) they may have simply missed the odd person out, particularly at the end of a long day tramping through the streets of the parish meeting hostile and suspicious householders!
Missing Census Returns
Unfortunately, census returns for certain districts have not survived to the present day for various reasons. If every other search has failed, check to ensure that the return for your sub-district does survive. Ancestry’s website has a list of missing census returns for the early censuses (1841 to 1861). Otherwise, check with your local record office. Of course, you need to be sure your ancestor was living in that area in the first place. Sometimes, people would be visiting relatives on census day and would not be recorded in their home town anyway.
‘Although every person should be listed on the census, people did slip through the net.’
Don’t forget that there might be another reason your ancestor isn’t listed at home – they might be residing in a school, workhouse, prison or ship, or perhaps had enlisted in the army or navy, in which case they could be located far away from their place of birth.
Census Returns for Scotland
Censuses were taken in Scotland on a similar basis to England and Wales from 1801 onwards. Scotland was divided into registration districts and sub-districts and enumerators were responsible for circulating and collecting the schedule forms. The enumerators would then enter the information into the census return books, which form the Scottish census returns that you can see today.
The original returns are now held at the GROS in Edinburgh. These records are also subject to 100-year closure rules. Nevertheless, it is possible to view the returns from 1841 to 1901 at GROS, which has computerized indexes for these returns for the entire period along with some other indexes, such as street indexes for certain areas and some privately produced indexes. As microfilm and fiche copies were made of the original returns, various local archives, record offices and libraries will hold copies for their area as well, so a trip to Edinburgh might not be necessary.
The returns are also available online on the following websites:
• www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk This is the main website for those conducting genealogical research in Scotland, being the official government source of genealogical data. Most of the key sources have been placed here, including all publicly available census returns for Scotland. The information is not free of charge, although you can search the databases after registering for free. However, you will have to pay to view the results and see digital images.
• www.ancestry.co.uk Ancestry has also placed Scottish data on its website. At the time of writing, searchable indexes for all census returns from 1841 to 1901 were available. These indexes relate to transcriptions of the original entries on the forms. It is not possible to view a copy of the original entry, only the transcription.
‘Most of Ireland’s early census records were destroyed by a fire in 1922.’
Census Returns for Ireland
The process of producing census returns for Ireland began slightly later, in 1821, and they were compiled every ten years subsequently. Unfortunately, most of the records were destroyed during the Civil War in 1922. Very little now survives for the nineteenth century. However, the returns for 1901 and 1911 are available and survive in their entirety.
Nineteenth-century Returns
The small proportion of census returns that do survive for this period can be found at the National Archives of Ireland, Dublin. They are organized county by county and some name indexes for certain counties have been prepared. Local county record offices may have copies of surviving records for their local area and it is worthwhile contacting these institutions first.