Читать книгу Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy: The definitive reference guide to tracing your family history - Nick Barratt - Страница 187

Although the theory was that every person living in the country at the time should be recorded, sometimes people slipped through the net. The early censuses attracted much suspicion as to why the state needed to record such personal information in the first place. Consequently people were often very reluctant to fill out the relevant forms. For example, a census return for Westminster in 1841 includes a margin note written by the enumerator stating that the head of the household refused to provide any information.

There may always be a simple explanation, in the sense that they were simply not present at home on the night the enumerator came to collect the forms, and failed to fill out a form where they were staying. Of course, the opposite is true as well, and some people appear more than once in the same census – once at their formal place of residence, and another at their lodgings whilst travelling around the country.

Additionally, babies and young children may be omitted as some parents felt that information should not be provided until the child was baptized. Alternatively, parents may not have detailed every child to avoid accusations of overcrowding. There is also the factor of human error; where enumerators had to record the information themselves (in cases of illiteracy) they may have simply missed the odd person out, particularly at the end of a long day tramping through the streets of the parish meeting hostile and suspicious householders!