travellers in the censuses

[catherinebryant]

HI

Do I just have to accept that my ancestors, known to be living in 'living vans' on common land in 1911 might not appear on any other census (I can't find them)?  or is there any other way I can trace them back?

Thanks

Cathy

[teaurn]

As far as I am aware they tried to list everyone on the night of the census.

I have even found one (name and age are correct)  where the address is given as

"homeless person reported by the police in a shed off Cadmore Lane N.Side." 

If they were living in vans they may have had issues with persons of authority and given false info. Maybe

[coombs]

I have a distant rellie who was living in a barn in Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire in the 1851 census and she was listed as a tramp. Gosh look how outspoken they were then. Mary Brain her name was.

[teaurn]

Or a family living in a tent at the side of side in 1871 in Great Eversden including children ages 4,3 and 1

[coombs]

I would think some slipped through the  net though.

[IgorStrav]

you are right, Coombs, see the brick wall Royd and I are battling with in our current Scavenger Hunt - helped by some stalwart Rootschatters - with our travelling Cork family, seemingly totally absent from the 1851 census....

[coombs]

My 3xgreat grandfather vanished in the 1881 census but is on the 1871 and 1891 censuses in the same area of Essex. Maybe he got drunk on census night and hid in the behind a haystack of an old barn. 

[stanmapstone]

In 1851 all that enumerators were instructed to do was to insert in one of their summary tables  the number of persons sleeping in barns, sheds, tents or in the open air, "or who from any other  cause, although within the district, have not been enumerated as inmates of any dwelling house."
The censuses were not carried out with family history in mind  they were carried out for statistical purposes to find out the numbers of the population in various categories, occupations etc. etc. and the results were published for each census.
 

[Sloe Gin]

Thanks Stan, I was looking fruitlessly for that quote with IgorStrav's thread in mind.  I've got a shedload  of people I can't find in 1841 because of this, and although some of 'em turn up in 1851, mostly in lodging houses, there are still several missing.

Of course 1841 is worse in this respect as the census was taken in June, and most travellers would have been on the road.