Book Review: Tracing Your Ancestors Using the Census by Emma Jolly

This is by far, the best genealogy book I've read so far. Balancing historical context with practical,
hands on advice and analysis, this was a joy to read.

UK Census Timeline

William the Conqueror ordered a 'Great Survey' to find out who owned what over much of England and parts of Wales. This was completed completed in 1086 and compiled into what became known as the "Domesday Book".

However, it wasn't until the Census Act 1800 which enabled the first Census of England, Scotland and Wales to be undertaken that the census begun proper in the UK.

Since then the census has taken place every 10 years since 1801 – apart from 1941 due to WWII.

The 1841 census was the first British census which aimed to record details about every citizen making it a treasure trove for genealogists.

A register was taken in 1939 shortly after the outbreak of WWII. As it records many personal details of individuals, it has become an invaluable census substitute. Not covered by the 100-year rule it will be available online around 2016.

During December 1942, the 1931 census was destroyed by fire in storage in Hayes, Middlesex meaning that it is gone forever - and thereby increasing the value and importance of the 1939 register.

It's been difficult to get accurate figures for the census before 2011, but I found that the UK population increased by over 42 million between 1841 and 2011.

The data is as follows:
1841
England and Wales - 15,914,148
Scotland - 2,620,184
Northern Ireland - 1,648,945
Total - 20,183,277

2011
England and Wales - 56,075,912
Scotland -5,295,403
Northern Ireland - 1,810,863
Total - 63,182,178

As I wasn't able to access the references within the first two sources, I've linked to the sites I used - therefore we just have to trust that the data has been added to these sites without introduction of error.

Download PDF



Sources:
POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND 1570-1931. 2014. POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN & IRELAND 1570-1931. [ONLINE] Available at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hitch/gendocs/pop.html. [Accessed 21 November 2014].
Demographics of Northern Ireland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 2014. Demographics of Northern Ireland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Northern_Ireland. [Accessed 21 November 2014].
UK Census - ONS . 2014. UK Census - ONS . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/census/2011/uk-census/index.html. [Accessed 21 November 2014].

Resolving a name confusion

In this post, I'll be writing about a brick wall that I've faced for some time. I'll write about the method
I used to get past it. While it may not be exactly the same as a name confusion in your family tree, I do hope that it will provide some potential ways you can get past your brick wall.

The Brick Wall

In my family tree I have people called Henri Magermans and Ida Ackermans, but I didn't have their date of birth. When looking online, I could only find a few records. This was odd as I was expecting many more.
I was missing their birth, death, and wedding records as well as the records some of the children I already knew they had. I was also stuck because I didn't have any information on their parents or siblings.
This was 4 years ago in the days of the old site Genlias; so I decided it was time to tackle this again...

What I already knew
I knew that they both lived in the Netherlands. I also knew that Henri was a  joiner as it says this on the marriage record for my great grandparents. I also had a note from 2010 when my Oma told me that there may have been another child called Gonda.
I also knew some of the children they had, including Johannes Joseph Magermans, for whom I had the birth and marriage record.

Next Steps

Using wiewaswie, I found people called Pieter Hendrik Magermans and Johanna Ida Ackermans. They lived at the same time as Henri and Ida and in an area close by.

With this information, I found that Pieter Hendrik Magermans was also a joiner and that he had a child called Hubertina Aldegonda Magermans.

I asked one of the Facebook groups I'm a member of to give me some help with this and they thought that Henri and Ida were also Pieter Hendrik Magermans and Johanna Ida Ackermans, but I wanted a way to be sure. Someone gave me a link to scans of their birth certificates and I saw that this site also linked to scans of the old Netherlands Bevolkingsregisters.

I made a spreadsheet to make a timeline of all the births, marriages, and deaths for ‘both’ couples and their children. I colour-coded the children who had multiple entries, so I could see if the parents name stayed stable for multiple records for individuals. What I found was:

1. The parents names did stay stable for individual children, for example a parents name on the birth record and marriage record for Johannes Joseph were the same. 
2. That each child was born in a different year - if multiple children were born within a year, this would have hinted that I was looking at two couples rather than one.
3. That the main 'name change' seemed to occur after they moved to Oud-Valkenburg from Schin op Geul. But that one birth had the full name and then they went to middle names.

A spreadsheet timeline to understand the individuals I was following.

BUT, importantly, this didn't 'prove' that they were the same couple. So I starting thinking about how to prove whether Henri and Ida were Pieter Hendrik and Joanna Ida.

The solution
At this point, what sprang to mind was that I needed to find the whole family documented at the same place and at the same time. The most obvious thing to do was to check the population records. 

After scrolling through many MANY scanned pages, I finally found the whole family in the Oud-Valkenburg census for 1850-1900.

My ancestors in the Oud-Valkenburg census for 1850-1900

This population register showed the couple as Henri and Ida, but has all of their children, including the children I already knew about and with dates I already had. Finding Henri and Ida's birth records, also led to finding the names of their parents.

So, I’m excited to have found that even though they both decided to go by their middle names in later life, that they are the same people! I had read that this name change was fairly common, but I hadn't come across it before and felt daunted that both of them had opted to use their middle names.

In future posts, I'll be writing about the resources that I used to find out all of this information, so add me to your blog reader, or sign up to receive new posts by email!