Ancestors

My Ancestors
in
the 1901 Census

I have looked for, and found, all my direct ancestors who were living at the time of the 1901 census and report details here - together with notes as to the errors found - some of which made finding them harder than it should have been. Some errors may later have been corrected.

Pieces RG13-1310-112-26 & 27

Administrative County: Hertford
Civil Parish of: St Alban
Ecclesiastical Parish of: Sandridge St Saviours St Leonards [1]
Municipal Borough of: St Albans [2]
Parliamentary Division of: Mid or St Albans
Town Village or Hamlet of: Town
Road .. No or Name of House: Heath Farm

[1] "St Saviour" entry not typed [and as it happens was correct]
[2] "St Albans" left blank in error - so not retrievable with normal spelling
[3] Exact match - does not respond to queries for "Farmer" or "Brickmaker". Will answer to "Farmer*" or complete string.

[4] "Newton" recorded as "Hendon" - treated as "ditto" and copied from above line [Ancestry has this correct]

[5] "Dom" (short for Domestic) omitted [Items in italics were later "emendations" usually in a different hand, made when the statistics were counted up - these appear to have been deliberately omitted when the hand writing makes their status clear - so I am not reporting.]

Piece RG13-1310-43-38

Administrative County: Hertford
Civil Parish of: Harpenden
Ecclesiastical Parish of: Harpenden St Nicholas
Urban District of: Harpenden
Parliamentary Division of: Mid or St Albans [1]
Town Village or Hamlet of: Harpenden
Road .. No or Name of House: Hollybush Lane [do] Hillfield

[1] Transcribed correctly but useless for searching

[2] "Means" omitted

[3] "Flamstead" incorrectly transcribed as Hamstead. While difficult, the "Fl" is quite clearly different to the "H" of the previous word so should not have been in error.  

[4] "Means" not copied with "do".

[6] "Dom" omitted

[7] unreadable word, possibly deleted

[8] "Dom" omitted - (domestic) actually below the line and in the Harry Reynolds box.

[10] Congratulations - I would probably have missed "Welwyn" if I had not already known where he was born, [Ancestory makes it "Nelwyn"]

Piece RG13-1310-16-24

Administrative County: of Hertford [1]
Civil Parish of: Harpenden Urban pt of [2]
Ecclesiastical Parish of: Harpenden St Nicholas
Urban District of: Harpenden
Parliamentary Division of: The Mid or St Albans [3]
Town Village or Hamlet of: Harpenden Pt of [4]
Road .. No or Name of House: Hatching Green

[1] recorded as "of Hertford" so search problems as cannot be found in search for Hertford
[2] "pt of" not recorded
[3] "or" recorded as "of" [original very clear so no excuse]
[4] "Pt of" not recorded

[5] "Froxfield" omitted - deemed unreadable [Ancestry records the birthplace as Troyfield]
[6] as recorded on original

Piece: RG13-1325-71-5

Administrative County: Hertford
Civil Parish of: Hemel Hempsted [1]
Ecclesiastical Parish of: Hemel Hempstead St Paul [2]
Municipal Borough of: Hemel Hempsted
Parliamentary Division of: The Western or Watford Division of Herts
Town Village or Hamlet of: -
Road .. No or Name of House: WestView Rd [do]

[1] Modern Spelling is "Hemel Hempstead" - and the use of a stamp (see [4] below) suggests a systematic error on the part of the enumerator,

[2] Transcribed as "... Surveyor Engineer". The "corporn" is complicated by the form of the "p" (which is identical to the "p" in Chapel a few lines higher), and the fact that the two "r" are written differently - but this also happens elsewhere on the page. [Are there other errors on this page involving "p" and "r"?] Neither of these two should have been mis-transcribed so the word should not have been recorded as unreadable. The final letter has a mark above so possibly it should be transcribed as "h" rather than "n". ["Corporn" is clearly meant to be an abbreviation for "Corporation" - which would have been a correct description of his occupation - although he was usually described elsewhere as Borough Surveyor.] [There is no effective way that you can retrieve on "surveyor" or "engineer"]

[3] Transcribed as "Coresham" - The "or"/"av" is ambiguous - the missing "r" is clearly wrong. [Ancestry correctly gives the place name Caversham, but calls her Manuel.]
[4] Modern Spelling applied as a stamp for all born there - this presumably means that no-one in this book who was born in Hemel Hempstead is retrievable as having been born in the county of "Hert*"  [Ancestry also does not record county, and while age is 11 months the search package gives him the age of 11 years.]
[5] The leading capital is a mess and there is nothing like it on the page. One stroke is similar to the "C" - so this is as good a shot as any. [Errors in capital letters are common so the fact that one cannot search on a name ending in "ollis" is a distinct disadvantage"]

Piece RG13 1161 66 22

[1] Misspelt Gloucester is enumerator error

[2] Recorded as "D? Baylis" - Not as clear as one would like due in part to line thickness (pen freshly dipped and too much ink on the nib?). However very similar letter shapes can be found - the "t" on the line above and the "son" on the line below. The "W" has an extra mark which is why it was recorded as "D" but otherwise is almost identical to the "W" on the line below. [Ancestory correctly transcribes as Watson]

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Clearly there are many problems with the transcript and one needs to use a lot of imagination in order to find who you are looking for. In the above cases I already had very extensive information on all the people so had no difficulty in finding them - but in many cases the problem is that you need the census to find information you didn't already know.

See also Problems with finding census returns

If you can add to the information given above tell me.

Page updated November 2005