Census 1911
Monday, September 7th, 2009Like many others I have engrossed in the National Archives and the 1911 census which is now online and searchable and is absolutely amazing. The all-Ireland data was recently released and I cannot imagine what work must have gone into digitising it all, but I can say that it was a fantastic job and I learned so much as did everyone I knew who did it.
The most fascinating and indeed poignant information I found involved my grandfather’s family entries.
Thats my grandad at the bottom of the form and under this is my grandad with me and my uncle (who incidentally was named after my Granda).
The information about my family contained in the census is fascinating, they spoke Irish and English, my great-grandfather was a French polisher, I never knew that, actually I knew little about them really. This has told me so much, who would have thought there would be so much information in such a small place. I’ve had friends find out their family didn’t actually come from where people thought. So if you are looking yourself you should bear that in mind, and you should also bear in mind that few of those in the census appear to have gone by their birth name. Some of them are easy to guess in that they are derivatives of their birth names, in other instances such as with some of my family members their names had nothing to do with their given names.
The picture below shows the family minus my Granda and this is where it raises questions for me as it has been presumed the children are as you see in the form, except for my Granda. However the more I thought about it the ages don’t marry. According to the information in the census, my great-grandparents had 10 children and maybe the little girl isn’t Anne (3) at all, but another child who died. There is a big-ish age gap between her and her older brothers which there doesn’t seem to be here. At first I thought this was taken just before my great-grandmother was about to get pregnant or indeed just pregnant with my Granda, judging by the age of who I thought was Anne, but given the ages of the other boys, its not possible. The little girl in the pic must have been one of their children who died. And thats not the only sad thing in these details.
At the far left of the picture is Robert Morgan. Robert signed up with the Royal Irish Fusiliers and died in the First World War. Like many others Robert must have lied about his age to sign up as on his gravestone his age is 26, but according to the census he would have only been 21 when he died in 1918. What is even more uncanny is that he is the double of my cousin who was named after him, a cousin who sadly passed away too young a couple of years back.
(My great-grandfather and great-grandmother – she looks a little scary, doesn’t she?)
The other family I definitely found was my maternal grandmother’s family and what is mad about this, is that the census was taken three days before she was born.
Elizabeth, known as Lily, was blind. My Nanny would tell me all sorts of stories about her and how she would check their faces to see if they were wearing make-up, and therefore going out, and make my Nanny bring her to Central Library to bring back her braille books. Or how she would check their wardrobes to feel if they had any new frocks. I loved hearing those stories. And I loved even more seeing her on the census.
I also checked my father’s side but was stumped with names, so I’m going to talk to family and find out more. But a mad coincidental thing did happen, I started to look via their street name, and ended up with three pages of the one street. My other Nanny was called Susan, but known as Vera, so I clicked on someone called Susan who lived on the street, even thought I don’t think she would have been born then (but I could be wrong) and I somehow in the first click, actually got their house. So even if it isn’t my family they lived in the house I spent so much time in as a child and they were all mill workers. What is mind-boggling is that there was a husband and wife, their child, an aunt and a lodger living in the two-up two-down terraced house.
We learn so much about our families from the census, and I am delighted the National Archives put so much work into releasing all this invaluable information. Thank you.
