Thanks Charani, I was wondering. A great many in the census have no occupation so it seemed odd that a child would be listed as Independant Debbie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charani" <familyhunter@family-hunter.co.uk> To: <eng-somerset@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 29, 2008 11:25 PM Subject: Re: [ENG-SOM] Independant occupation > Debbie McKay wrote: > >>>Hi list, I'm currently transcribing the 1841 Census for Hundred of >>>Whitley >>>and have come across a number of children (under 15) who are listed as >>>independant. Was this common? Why would they have been listed as >>>Indepednant? One of them is with a farmer, Vincent Hamblin 25 in Othery, >>>and her name is Charlotte Lovibond (what a great name) and she is only 7. >>>There is no one else living in that household. > > She could be a relation. > > It could be that the enumerator decided to put something down for > everyone and if the child wasn't a scholar deemed them to be > Independent. Or it could be that was how the household schedules were > completed. Perhaps one person was helping a number of others to > complete the schedules, hence the consistency. > > In Walton (which is in the Whitley Hundred) there are only 17 given as > Ind. The vast majority of those are upwards of 70 with a handful > younger (between 40 and 60). There are a couple of 25 year olds but > only one girl (between 15 and 19) and she was living alone. There are > no occupations against a great many of the villagers though. > > It isn't something that's uniform across the whole of the hundred, > just the parish within it that you're currently doing. > > -- > Charani (UK) > OPC for Walton, SOM > http://wsom-opc.org.uk > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ENG-SOMERSET-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Debbie McKay wrote: > Thanks Charani, I was wondering. A great many in the census have no > occupation so it seemed odd that a child would be listed as Independant It does seem odd, I agree. -- Charani (UK) OPC for Walton, SOM http://wsom-opc.org.uk