What does the 1871 census tell us about the family?

What does a census return tell you?

What good is it in doing family history?

The census return is one of the best family history records

I am going to dwell on the 1871 census return for one particular family for a while, to see what information can be coaxed out of it.

With all the resources available on the Internet, not to mention in libraries and in the research others may have done, there is no reason to be too hasty! Of course we all like to get on with the chase and find more ancestors, but it's also important to stop and think about them.

For one thing, this respects them as people and not just names on a page. (In a hundred years, which would you rather be?)

Also, by studying at least a little bit of the context in which our ancestors lived, we can often come up with clues about who, what, where, when, and that marvellous question: Why?

The address of the home in the 1871 census of England and Wales

You would think it would be easy to figure out the family's address if you have been lucky enough to locate them by name in the census returns. In England, and especially in London, I find it rather confusing!

The John VERNELL #2 family is a great example.

Lucky for us, the address is legible. They often aren't. Here it's 23 Fenwick Row, written in the space to the left of the name of the head of the household. But Fenwick Row where?

Up at the top of the census form there are eight different boxes to identify a location:

- Civil Parish (or Township)
- City or Municipal Borough
- Municipal Ward
- Parliamentary Borough
- Town
- Village or Hamlet, etc.
- Local Board (or Improvement Commissioners' District)
- Ecclesiastical District.

Some of these are mutually exclusive. For example, you don't expect a place to be both a town and a village at the same time. (But never rule these things out! Maybe we should have a contest for the first person to find a census return where are eight things are filled out with no repetition.)

In the John VERNELL #2 case, there is no mention in any of the eight boxes of "London", yet that is where we would think this family lived, especially those of us who don't live in the UK and aren't familiar with the twisty, turny, plate of spaghetti that London is and was.

What the census form shows for the VERNELLs is:

- Civil Parish (or Township): St Giles
- City or Municipal Borough: Camberwell
- Municipal Ward: No 6 Ward
- Parliamentary Borough: Lambeth
- Town: (blank)
- Village or Hamlet, etc.: (blank)
- Local Board (or Improvement Commissioners' District): East Dulwich
- Ecclesiastical District: St John [in] the East.

How can you find out where exactly the ancestors lived if you know the address?

That's the next question. I think it's time to talk about a few great resources: maps and reference books.

Preparing to search in the 1871 census of England using Ancestry.com

Just in case you're wondering, I am an ordinary paying customer of Ancestry.com. They don't know me, I don't know them.

I use other genealogy products but because Ancestry.com fits so many of my needs, they are my current favourite.

Back to my search for John VERNELL #1. Right now, I am showing you how I found out there ever was such a person.

Get ready to start searching the census

One of the most wonderful things we have these days is easy access to census data. It was really not long ago (starting around 1992) that I would go to the PRO, first on Chancery Lane and then to the new building at Kew, and look at reels of microfilmed census returns. I hate microfilm! Even microfiche makes me dizzy. So, I'm very thankful for being able to get census returns at the press of a button.

Is it really as easy as that? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Looking for John VERNELL and his wife Eleanor Anne in the 1871 census of England

From their marriage certificate, I know that on 5 July 1864, John VERNELL (the one I call John VERNELL #2) married Eleanor Anne CAMPBELL at the Parish Church in the Parish of Hackney. Both were under age. Usually a marriage certificate will give you either "of full age" or an exact age. This is the only one I've come across in my own research where both parties are under age, though I am not suggesting it's particularly rare.

In this case, although I cannot point to the statute or another legal authority setting the "full age" at 21, I am fairly sure that in 1864, that's what it was.

I can estimate that John and Eleanor Anne were born in approximately 1844, based on a guess that they were about 20 when they married. That means in the 1871 census, I will be looking for people who are no older than 27. However, it is best to be a little loose with the dates at first, and cast the net more broadly. That is experience talking!

Looking for children when you know something about the parents: John VERNELL #1

My story of the VERNELL family is an ongoing example of how to do family history research.

Typically in family history, it's easiest to work backwards from the present to the past. That's because we usually know something about how things are today, and from that we can start to put together the pieces and figure out how they were last year, last century, and so on.

However, the principle is really to work from the known to the less known.

In genealogy research, start with what you know

Eleanor Ann(e) CAMPBELL married John VERNELL on July 5, 1864. I wrote a little about this yesterday, "Building a person's life story from Ancestry.com".

I know that Eleanor Ann(e) had children with John, because it is part of the family history that's been passed down to me. We can't always trust those stories 100% but at the very least, they give us a starting point.

The information you have helps you decide what genealogical records to search for and where

I have now got several fairly reliable known pieces of information:
- the wedding date and place
- the names of the bride, groom, and their respective fathers,and the witnesses
- the occupations of the groom and the two fathers, and
- the addresses and ages of the bride and groom.

I am going to check the census return for the first census after the wedding. If I find this couple, with any luck I will also find some or all of their children living with them and listed as a family in the census. The census is a good choice of record to look at now. I could go on a fishing expedition looking for children in the indexes of births, or the baptism records, but the thing is, I don't yet know for sure how many children John and Eleanor Anne had, and I don't know their names, apart from John's.

(In fact I am sort of cheating. I actually found out about John's existence by looking at the census, and now I am going back to explain my search steps.)

Next: Looking for John VERNELL and his wife Eleanor Anne, nee CAMPBELL, in the 1871 census of England.

John VERNELL #1, of London and area, Solicitor's clerk, ~1866 to 1908

In the quest to sort out the John VERNELL's, I've named them John VERNELL #1 through #4. The most recent is #1, the oldest (so far) is #4. There is one in each generation of the VERNELL family.

The 1901 Census

In 1901, John VERNELL and his wife Mary Ann lived at 71 Ranelagh Road, East Ham, Essex. According to the census, he was a 35-year-old Solicitor's Clerk, and she his wife.

Mary Ann, who are you?

The GRO Marriage Index has a John VERNELL marrying Mary Ann CHAUNDY in the last quarter of 1897. But, no Mary Ann CHAUNDYs have come tumbling out of the birth index nor any of the censuses from 1871 to 1891. Although the 1901 census says she was born in Bloomsbury, Middlesex, the greater concentration of CHAUNDYs seems to be in Oxfordshire.

John and Mary Ann refuse to be found, John in 1891 census, and Mary Ann at all!

I may need to get the marriage certificate for this couple if I want to track Mary Ann back before 1897. But John in 1891? Probably a mistranscription, and I may never find him.

In the meantime, let's have a look at 71 Ranelagh Road, East Ham.



Here's a link to a nice little map of the community of East Ham, mentioning some of the history (Anne BOLEYN included), and some of the local points of interest. It's on a website called ExploringEastLondon.co.uk.

The VERNELL family history story so far starts here:

Family History Stories: Ancestors: The VERNELLs were silk manufacturers in Spitalfields in the early 1800s

The most recent part was here:

Family History Stories: Sorting out the various John VERNELLs

Up next: John VERNELL #1 and Queen Victoria's timeline.






Clickable map of 71 Ranelagh Road, East Ham, in 2010 (Google Maps)


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