Getting back to your family roots

May 10 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

In the second part of our genealogy series, Laura Davis finds out how to glean information from a census

THE job description was strict: “He must not be infirm; he must be temperate, orderly and respectable, and such a person has to conduct himself with strict propriety.”

And the position – of census taker for the 1901 count – was an important one that was taken very seriously.

This was fortunate for the British government at the time, and fortunate for us too when we come to research our ancestry more than 100 years later.

Past censuses provide a commentary on Liverpool’s changes since the 19th century.

The city’s prominence as a shipping port is obvious from the large number of ships featuring on the forms.

Each was recorded as a separate residence, with details of all crew members included, and a fine of £5 was charged for inaccurate information.

The 1891 census shows that an Irish steamer named Captain Cook was moored at Kings Dock, with Captain Michael Child and eight crew aboard, including two fishermen.

Rodney Street’s evolution from a residential street to the Harley Street of the North was also beginning to show around this time, as physicians and surgeons hurried to take over the numerous boarding houses and private residencies to both live and work in.

There is much we can learn from census records about the people of Liverpool as well as the city itself.

The Victorian census returns, taken every 10 years from 1841 up until 1901, will prove to be one of the most valuable sources of information about your ancestors in your family history search.

“There’s a hundred-year rule on the census so you can only, at the moment and until 2011, get hold of them up until 1901,” says Roger Spalding, senior lecturer in history at Edge Hill University, who teaches a module on local and family history.

“This can give you a problem if you have an ancestor who was born after 1901.

“My grandfather was born in 1903 so missed the 1901 census so the best way forward was to get hold of his birth certificate which had his parents’ names on and then I could look them up on the census.”

The British government introduced the first census in 1801, which was really little more than a head-count by parish vicars. The information was used to calculate how many people could be taken off the land to fight in the Napoleonic Wars.

From 1801 these head-counts continued every 10 years until 1831, but very few of the records survive.

In 1837, when Victoria took over the throne, a Registrar General was appointed to keep tabs on births, deaths and marriages – and it was this man, Thomas Henry Lister, who created the census as we know it today.

The full census record can only be released to the public 100 years after it has been taken, so the finer detail of the returns we completed in 2001 will not be disclosed until 2101, long after most of us are dead.

The 1901 census was made public in 2001 and revealed interesting details about famous Liverpool Edwardians.

One-year-old Arthur Askey, then named Sidney, was living at 77 Rosslyn Street, Dingle, with his father Samuel, a 27-year-old board clerk and his mother Edith, 25.

Bessie Braddock, who went on to become MP for Liverpool Exchange, is listed under her maiden name of Bamber.

The head of 23 Zante Street in Kirkdale was her father, Hugh, who was 32 and a bookbinder. Her mother Mary, 27, had earlier moved to the city from Scotland.

Also living with the family was Bessie’s blind grandmother Agnes Little, 61, and her uncle Hugh who was 18 and was employed at a palm oil works.

Number 10 Elm Bank Road was home to 37-year-old Meccano inventor Frank Hornby, his wife Clara, aged 35, and their two sons, Roland, 11, and Douglas, 10.

“Censuses are a good way of finding out information about your ancestors, but they only give a small amount of information and often leave you wanting more,” says Roger.

“My relatives moved from the countryside to the coast around about 1790, and you can get that information from parish records or the censuses, but of course they don’t tell you the reason for them moving.”

WHERE TO FIND THE CENSUS RECORDS >>>