Some time ago my brother Chris had been accumulating information from Census records as he put together the history of the Bushells, writing family narratives to help 'place' everybody. Once I started on the Sedermans, he pointed me to the 1901 Ancestry record, from which 'Charlie' was born in Ramsgate, Kent. At the time we "knew" it was Sweden, so we just assumed there had been a transcription error.
On all Census entries, the information starts with the name of the Head of the Household. Then other people in the house on that day are listed with their relationship to the Head described in the column after their name. So, it usually said Head, then Wife, then son/daughter etc. Occasionally it would have Servant, or Brother or Boarder, Visitor, or similar.
Last week (4 Feb 2015) when on our familiar pilgrimage to Cardiff, I noticed a strange thing on that 1901 transcription... Julia has been put first, but she is not listed as Head, or as Wife; she is listed as Mother...
She is followed by 29 year old Bertha, Daughter, on the transcript as Forewoman at Biscuit Factory; then Lily, Daughter, who was a schoolgirl at the time, then Julia and Antony's younger son Charlie (20), then Francis, aged 28, a Master Baker. Following him is Sydney (sic) Morgan, aged 5, a Grandson; he is Julia's grandson, Ellen Maria's little boy. Then comes Francis Hubbard, a Blacksmith, listed as Uncle. And finally, Charles Sederman, Father, a Mariner.
How come that this, amongst all the records, has a difference that is quite fundamental...
Last week (4 Feb 2015) when on our familiar pilgrimage to Cardiff, I noticed a strange thing on that 1901 transcription... Julia has been put first, but she is not listed as Head, or as Wife; she is listed as Mother...
She is followed by 29 year old Bertha, Daughter, on the transcript as Forewoman at Biscuit Factory; then Lily, Daughter, who was a schoolgirl at the time, then Julia and Antony's younger son Charlie (20), then Francis, aged 28, a Master Baker. Following him is Sydney (sic) Morgan, aged 5, a Grandson; he is Julia's grandson, Ellen Maria's little boy. Then comes Francis Hubbard, a Blacksmith, listed as Uncle. And finally, Charles Sederman, Father, a Mariner.
How come that this, amongst all the records, has a difference that is quite fundamental...
And so I went back to the original record, just to see that, in fact, there is a deviation from the earlier practice:-
The 1901 Census was taken on the night of 31 March/1 April. The Census forms were distributed to all households a couple of days before census night and the completed forms were collected the following day. All forms were meant to accurately reflect each individual's status as of 31 March/1 April 1901 and the household they spent the night in. So the form came into contact directly with the family. People who were travelling or living abroad were recorded at the location where they spent the night.
All of the details from the individual forms were later sorted and copied into the Census books, which are the original records as above. The actual originals are not available any more, just the summaries (although for some Cardiff addresses, we can still see the handwritten entries, I think?)
So, who filled it in? I believe it is most likely that Bertha was the informant, and that this led to the deviation from the 'proper' way of describing the people in the household.
Firstly, Julia is Bertha's Mother, and Charles is Bertha's Father. Francis Hubbard, the Blacksmith, is Bertha's Uncle. This, I think, establishes the fact that it was one of the children who gave the information. If it had been Julia, although she might have put herself as mother, why would she have described Francis as Uncle, when he was her brother?
My second reason for the 'guess' is that some of the details are not correct, such as Julia's and Charles/Antony's birth years - Julia was born in 1847, and although Charles/Antony's says 1834, which could be deduced from his age, if either of the parents had written it in, it would have been nearer to the right dates.
Thirdly, someone has written in what Bertha does for a living, and then it has been overwritten by the word 'Breadmaker', although in a different hand from the first. As a shift worker at the local biscuit factory she could have been also working for her brother Francis, who is listed as an "Employer, working at home". 21 Splott Road was also the address of his bakery.
Finally, the language that Bertha speaks is English - the only place where the word is written in full ( Julia's entry has a ditto which relates to the previous entry). So, she might have made sure her details own appeared and the rest flowed from it.
Charles or Antony?
The name that Antony called himself on all of his official seaman's papers was Antony. His Swede-Finn birth entry - Anton - has no other name attached. In the 1891 Census return, and his last application for mate's Certificate in 1894, he is Antony. But here he is 'Charles', a name we first encounter on his 1869 marriage certificate, and by which he appears to be known (ie. CA or Chas. Sederman) in the trade directories since 1893. So his daughter knows him as Charles, and knows that he wasn't born in Wales, or East Brent where she was born, but... where? Julia would have known him by both names, and that he was 'from Sweeden' as the last census has it. He is last on the list - which could suggest he wasn't actually there at the time, but that they didn't want to leave him out... Or when the enumerator came to pick up the form, if Antony had just returned from sea, and the enumerator asked Bertha "where had he come from?" she thought he might have sailed into Ramsgate? I can't find his voyages for 1901 yet, so it could be hard to check... Maybe Antony filled it in himself, at the last minute, but why the inaccuracies in his birth year, birthplace and name?
,But then, I wonder, why did the enumerator deviate from the rules to use words like Mother, Uncle etc. in his task of copying in the details from the form? William James Spear was 23, from Dinas Powys, just outside Cardiff. He worked as a General Labourer, according to his own census record for 1901 - maybe taking on an enumerator's job for the extra money... possibly not used to the detail the work needed, no doubt the relationships might have looked a bit strange but then what was he to do? Without knowing exactly who was who, he could have made a mistake by speculating ... and so he just did the copying out!
Update on this question:
In September 2015 I read a book about the Census by David Annals, who is a historian at the national archives, and realised that there is more to enumeration than is obvious at first glance! I wrote to him to pose the above dilemma, and eventually his reply helped me to understand:
"The descriptions of the relationships certainly fit with Bertha being the person who completed the form. It's clear that she hadn't read the instructions properly but she was (I believe) also struggling with a fairly common dilemma - namely, how to describe the relationships to the 'Head of the Household' when the Head was absent. Does someone else become the 'Head' in his absence or is he still the Head in absentia? I strongly suspect that Charles/Anthony wasn't at home when Bertha originally completed the form (the schedules were delivered in the week preceding the actual date of the census) but that he returned and was in the house on the Sunday night. I note that he was a mariner which means that he would have been absent from the house for prolonged periods. The family presumably wouldn't have know exactly when he was due back and his return may therefore have been unexpected. Bertha would then (I assume) have added her father's details at the bottom of the form.
The enumerator may have found all of this quite confusing. It was the 322nd form that he's had to copy into his summary books and, however conscientious he may have been at the start of the process, by now he may well have lost some of his initial enthusiasm and may have been more interested in getting the job finished, and finished quickly. 'Reinterpreting' it simply meant more work - and no more pay!
As for Bertha's 'two occupations' what we have is actually two parts of the process. Bertha (or whoever) seems to have given the occupation as 'Forewoman at Biscuit Factory' and the enumerator copied this out verbatim as per his instructions. Once the books were back at the Census Office, it was the task of the clerks to categorise the occupations for statistical purposes and in this case, the category chosen was 'Bread Maker'.".
In September 2015 I read a book about the Census by David Annals, who is a historian at the national archives, and realised that there is more to enumeration than is obvious at first glance! I wrote to him to pose the above dilemma, and eventually his reply helped me to understand:
"The descriptions of the relationships certainly fit with Bertha being the person who completed the form. It's clear that she hadn't read the instructions properly but she was (I believe) also struggling with a fairly common dilemma - namely, how to describe the relationships to the 'Head of the Household' when the Head was absent. Does someone else become the 'Head' in his absence or is he still the Head in absentia? I strongly suspect that Charles/Anthony wasn't at home when Bertha originally completed the form (the schedules were delivered in the week preceding the actual date of the census) but that he returned and was in the house on the Sunday night. I note that he was a mariner which means that he would have been absent from the house for prolonged periods. The family presumably wouldn't have know exactly when he was due back and his return may therefore have been unexpected. Bertha would then (I assume) have added her father's details at the bottom of the form.
The enumerator may have found all of this quite confusing. It was the 322nd form that he's had to copy into his summary books and, however conscientious he may have been at the start of the process, by now he may well have lost some of his initial enthusiasm and may have been more interested in getting the job finished, and finished quickly. 'Reinterpreting' it simply meant more work - and no more pay!
As for Bertha's 'two occupations' what we have is actually two parts of the process. Bertha (or whoever) seems to have given the occupation as 'Forewoman at Biscuit Factory' and the enumerator copied this out verbatim as per his instructions. Once the books were back at the Census Office, it was the task of the clerks to categorise the occupations for statistical purposes and in this case, the category chosen was 'Bread Maker'.".