Genealogy Chat

Does anybody know what the rules where when the head of a house is not staying at the house on the night of the census. Do they simply select another person to be listed as the 'head'? I don't recall seeing any records with a missing 'head' but don't know the rules or how consistently these rules were applied I have an example where I am certain there is a mistake made as a result of this very issue in the 1851 Cenus. Phoebe Lee (born 1804) is to be found listed as head of household in Tring, Hertfordshire and also to be found visiting her sister-in-law in Abbots Langley (the index wrongly lists her as Phoebe Dell but the scan is clear). Can anyone help me know what should have happened in these circumstances?

Michael it varies from census to census, I have had a husband who is not home on the night of the census and his wife is down as Head, I have also had it where the husband is away and the wife is still down as wife. I have even had both parents away leaving 6 children with their 17 year old brother but the 17 year old was down as son not head, so as you can see there is no set rule. There have been many occasions where people are in 2 places at the same time on census's it's probably just crossed wires, maybe they were due home on the night but never made it? Georgina.

It is improbable that the census forms were collected the morning after census night. If/when families could write (the minority in 1851) they would have filled in the form as convenient. This could mean they forgot they were going to be away. If they filled in the form later they could equally easily forget they had been away. If mum left it to daughter to complete daughter was unlikely to leave off mum especially is she was head of the house. Double listing of people is far from uncommon in the earlier census returns. Clive

I do not fully understand your point but Phoebe is head because she is a widow, as she seems to be in 1841.

I guess once you have ruled out whether there are two people with the same name born in the same town around the same time, then it leaves you with the possible explanations that others have given.

Thanks Georgina. I probably shouldn't have given the example as it has caused a bit of confusion. I have absolutely no doubt that we are talking about the same person as I know who and when Phoebe married and when and where her husband died. I wasn't asking for advise on this case - it was purely an example. I am not asking if it could it be the same person as I know it is. What I asked is the question that Georgina has addressed - whether there were any rules about who should be listed as the head of household . Are any blank forms available anywhere? I think it is quite likely that enumerators would be completing virtually all the forms on behalf of the householders in 1851 and perhaps they were not always as careful in the way they asked the questions on the form as they should have been. Jim - I fully understand that she was head of her household but it is fairly clear that she wasn't at home on the night in question but is still listed. The likelihood is that she was back home when the enumerator called and there was a misunderstanding which resulted in her being listed as being at home.

Michael this bit of info is taken from Ancestry's website... About 1851 England Census The 1851 Census for England was taken on the night of 30 March 1851. The following information was requested: Name of street, place, road, etc. House number or name Name of each person that had spent the night in that household Relationship of person enumerated to the head of the family Person's marital status Age at last birthday (sex is indicated by which column the age is recorded in) Person's rank, profession, or occupation Person's place of birth (if outside of England or Wales, only the country may be given) Whether blind, deaf, or idiot Enumeration forms were distributed to all households a couple of days before census night and the complete forms were collected the next day. All responses were to reflect the individual's status as of 30 March 1851 for all individuals who had spent the night in the house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of the details from the individual forms were later sorted and copied into enumerators' books, which are the records we can view images of today. The original householders schedules from 1841 to 1901 were destroyed. Georgina.

I also think that people, just like today, did not read the instructions! There are literally millions of factual mistakes on census returns - those made by the householder, those made by the enumerator, those made by the collating clerk, and those made by the future transcribers. None of it really mattered all that much at the time - the census was taken for statistical purposes, with a built in percentile for errors such as the one you have described, not for finding out where Mrs Bloggs was on the night of the census. OC

I have one in 1871 that says, John Calendine Head Not residing in the house Sylvia

That's a good point, OC. My grandad (well, not really grandad, he was my grandma's partner for want of a better word - they never married) lived on his own from my grandma's death in 1996 to his in 2006. He lived on his own but when he visited at Christmas, my mum was sure he had senile dementia (as my grandma did) but because there was no one living with him, I think it was not recognised properly, I imagine people just thought he was an eccentric old man. But in 2001, he filled in his census form to the effect that my mum and aunty were still living at home, so whether someone didn't explain to him properly or he told the enumerator he understood when he didn't, I'm not sure. (From what my mum said, I think the second was the case.) But in 2101, that form is going to give somebody a real headache.