From: "Mike Landwehr" <mike@landwehr.net> > I'm relatively new to English research, and have a question about > the English census records of 1851 and 1861. My question is about > the place of birth as it appears on the census records. I've been > doing a lot of searching on the internet for an answer, but the info > I've found seems inconsistent. I'm researching the ODDY, SCOTT and > LONSDALE families in the Bradford area. If the place of birth > listed on the census record is the name of a town (or village), and > is also the name of the civil parish/township in which that town is > located, is that census record an indication that the person was > born in that town, or simply born somewhere in that parish/township? > For example, Idle Township (in Calverley Parish) includes the > village of Idle, the village of Windhill, and several smaller > hamlets. If the place of birth on the census record (1851 or 1861) > is "Idle, Yorkshire", should I assume that person was born in the > village of Idle, or simply assume that he/she was born somew! > here in Idle Township (possibly in Windhill or one of the other > hamlets in Idle Township)? > > Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. I'm really confused > by this!> You are asking a question that is impossible to answer! I suggest you read and digest thoroughly what Nivard has told you. I could not have put it any better myself and I have been in this business for 40 years. People often lied in censuses for reasons best known to themselves. People often didn't know where they had been born, especially if before 1837 when civil registration came in, so they didn't have a birth certificate. Nor often did they know exactly how old they were. Sometimes they gave a village, sometimes the nearest town, quite often the earliest place they could remember living in when they might not have been born there at all. You will find that some people gave different birth places in different censuses. You should know that before the census of 1911 - the first one in which the schedules were actually filled in by our ancestors and in which we can see their handwriting - the returns were completed by enumerators who were ordinary people who did their best and often they got it wrong! Can you imagine how tired and fed up they were after spending all day tramping up and down streets, trying to cajole people who were often hostile into completing the schedules and also speaking to people who were illiterate, especially in the earlier censuses which you mention? There was also the problem of pronunciation and dialects! Can you imagine the difficulty an enumerator in Yorkshire had trying to understand the dialect of someone born in Scotland or Cornwall and trying to spell place names he had never heard of? Given these problems, it is amazing that we manage to make much sense of the censuses at all!!! I recommend you to buy and read a few books about family history before going any further with your researches and then come back and ask questions here. As for your query about Idle and its townships, you are being far too precise. You are lucky it doesn't just say "Bradford" or "Calverley". You must be imaginative and understand that in 1851 people had little idea of where anywhere was unless they actually lived there. Forget your modern mindset and try and put yourself into the minds and attitudes of your ancestors and think how they would have seen the world around them - probably in a very simplistic and narrow way. That is the only way in which to research family history. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE