Census snippits

In my recent blog post for the Society for One-Place Studies I have opined on there being two ways to conduct an OPS - the organised and the random - and confessed that my approach was rather more random than I would like to admit. As part of putting this right I have been revisiting the 1861 census and extracting the immediate area around Springhill more fully.

The vagueness of enumerators in recording addresses has always been a bane for researchers and the chap who did the 1961 was no exception:

cloughfold addresses


Tracking down exactly where in Cloughfold is made more difficult by the non-production of a tithe map. Thankfully much of the village was owned by Springhill residents Charles and Mary Ann Patrick and their wills and various surrenders help enormously.

He was equally vague in recording place of birth, though this of course might be limited by the information given to him:


place of birth Australia

Then, glory be, one resident gave the place of birth down to the individual farm…

place of birth farms

'Myrtle Earth', aka 'Muck Earth' was the next farm to the west of Physic Hall with Saunder Height being the next to the north. Just for good measure Muck Earth, the next farm, is enumerated in the same manner.

Now why couldn't everybody have done that!

As an aside, it seems we may have had gay marriage for longer than we thought…

gay marriage?

A project for sometimes to see whose wife Betty Andrews really was.

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