Is this the same family? Opinions please!

[Biker]

I have ordered the cert, so will let you know.

In the meantime thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, most helpful as usual.


Regards
Jonathan

[Timbottawa]

Hi Hackstaple,

From the http://www.statistics.gov.uk site:

"The census taken in 1841 is widely regarded as the first truly modern census, when the first Registrar General of England and Wales, John Lister, was made responsible for organising the count. The task of counting was passed on to local officers of the newly created registration service.

"For the first time the head of each household was given a form to fill in on behalf of everyone in the household on a certain day. "

Cheers

Tim

[Hackstaple]

Agreed but what you are looking at is a copy of the enumerator's book and not the forms completed. Even if the head of the household was literate he may not have been able to spell - I have ancestors of that period in which siblings of a single generation spell their surname 3 different ways. I had this saved elsewhere - it is specifically about the 1841 census:
After information was recorded on pre-printed census schedules, a schedule was left with a household and later collected by the enumerator. If there was no one in the house who could write, the enumerator helped to record the information. The census enumerator then copied the information on the schedules into their official books known as census enumerators' books. Unfortunately, the original census schedules have been destroyed and it is the census enumerator's books that researchers see on the microfilm. Because the information in the books is a copy of the information on the schedule, there were often mistakes made in transcribing the information

[Timbottawa]

Well, I think we're in agreement.

If someone in the household could write, the enumerator would be transcribing from the household schedule, so any errors would be transcription errors ... either a straight mistake by the enumerator or an error resulting from misreading of poor handwriting.

My understanding is that, if there was no literate member of the household, the head of the household was supposed to seek help from friends or neighbours, and the enumerator recording verbal information was therefore a last resort.

So, the question comes down to whether Mr. Lines/Lyons was literate.  A copy of the marriage certificate would probably answer that question.  But ... without being totally sure what a "General Dealer" is, I would have thought that some level of literacy for stock-taking and the like would be necessary in that line of work.

Cheers

Tim