#52 Ancestors
This week's prompt for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is "In the Census." What intriguing find have you made in a census? What has a series of census records shown you? Do you have an ancestor who constantly ages only 7 years between censuses? (Those are fun!)
Someone suggested that maybe in Australia we could look at early musters or electoral rolls as our censuses don't have as much info as an English or American census.
In the Census
I really haven’t had much success with censuses. I haven't found anything intriguing! Yet!
Why? I'm not really sure. But in Australia I find that there isn’t much information on them in regard to my ancestors. Usually when I do find one, it is only to open it up and find a surname with how many inhabitants are in the house! Of course I want to know who those other inhabitants are, don't I?
Whereas Electoral Rolls seem to give me more information.
In the Electoral Rolls I have found, they usually have the eligible voters of a household listed. This has in a lot of cases confirmed siblings, spouses, occupations and residences. I have plotted the where abouts of many ancestors through Electoral Rolls, thus confirming things on their timeline. It has given me insight to the movement of a few of them! Of course there is no mention of non-voting children. But in my case "Beggars can't be choosers"!
I am in awe of some of the information on other country's Censuses. I will no doubt get to use some of them eventually, but for the time being I am stuck looking through the “less than informative” Australian records. I am still trying to confirm the birth and parent's names of some of my early ancestors before I can move out of this country.
I have used Electoral Rolls in conjunction with the Australian Sands Directory on many occasions.[1] These two databases have given me firm footings for placing many of my ancestors at different places and times.
I am still learning in many areas in regards to my research, but I am truely thankful of the many resources that are now available online for today's researchers.
I look forward to reading about other's exciting finds, but for now I am off to trawl through Trove! [2]
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1 Sands Directories: Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, 1858-1933
Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, Sands Street Index, 1861-1930 https://search.ancestry.com.au/search cardcatalog.aspx#ccat=hc=25&dbSort=1&sbo=1&title=&keyword=SANDS%20DIRECTORY&
1 Sands Directories: Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, 1858-1933
Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, Sands Street Index, 1861-1930 https://search.ancestry.com.au/search cardcatalog.aspx#ccat=hc=25&dbSort=1&sbo=1&title=&keyword=SANDS%20DIRECTORY&
2 National Library of Australia, Online database, https://trove.nla.gov.au
As you say this is not your favourite subject to write on, nor is it mine, I have no idea how to approach this one. You have managed it quite well.
ReplyDeleteI accidentally hit your side bar and read a great story about a soldier in Cairo., I was going to comment on it, when again I lost the page and was back on Facebook! It is a bit like the way some research, darting everywhere. And because of that I think I now have my story on the census. Thank you.
Bleggy.
Thanks Bleggy, I think the post you were reading would have been by Kim Chalmers, it is very interesting reading.
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