Friday, August 16, 2013

Roger the Watchdog is in the 1911 England Census

I received an email announcement this past week from FindMyPast.co.uk that contained one of those great and humorous finds in the 1911 England, Wales and Scotland Census records.  I checked it out for myself and saved the image...


This is the household of James Ange Little and his family in the Camberwell Registration District in London, England.  James Little's occupation was listed as a Journalist (I think, it's difficult to read the writing).  He must have thought it was a matter of great national interest or importance to list his dog in the census records on his family sheet.  He noted on line 9:

"Incidentally, we have an Airedale Terrier.  I don't know whether particulars are required, but in case you want them, here they are:"

On line 11 are these entries for the column headings:

*  Name:  Roger
*  Age:  5  Sex: Male
*  Particulars as to Marriage: ?
*  Completed Years of Marriage:  ?
*  Total Children Born Alive:  ?  but something over 100
*  Children Living:  ?
*  Children who have died:  ?

*  Personal Occupation:  Watchdog
*  Industry or Service:  Looking after house
*  Type of worker:  On own account
*  Whether working at home:  at home or outside
*  Birthplace:  Keighley, Yorkshire
*  Nationality: [blank]
*  Infirmity:  [blank]

This is one for my Genealogy Funnies presentation!

One thing I like about the FindMyPast downloads is the file name - this one was GBC-1911-RG14-02457-0097.jpg which is a code for GreatBritianC????-RecordGroup14-somenumber-imagenumber.  Does anyone know what the numbers mean?  If I knew, then it would be easier to work with it.

One thing that I wish FindMyPast would add to their website is the ability to browse collection images - to go to the next or previous image, or to a specific image.  At this time, I have to search for a specific person, and cannot search an entire parish (which I would love to be able to do in the earlier census records).  The same thing happens in the USA Census records - I can search but not browse.  Have I missed something here - is the capability there and I've missed it?

Do you have a favorite Genealogy Funny from the census records?  If so, give me a link and i'll be happy to post it.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/roger-watchdog-is-in-1911-england-census.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

4 comments:

Hilary Gadsby said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hilary Gadsby said...

Randy
as with earlier censuses the numbers refer to registration districts, enumeration districts and schedules.
See the website for the National Archive of the UK. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/default.htm
On the uk site you can search by a place as well as person.The US site has a different way of filtering the results.

Anonymous said...

Record Group, Piece. I assume UKC is UK Census. 1911 is the census year--which normally you wouldn't put in a TNA (The National Archives) cite, as the RG number is specific to each census (and other grouping of records). Internally TNA would just use RG/Piece/Page number format. Their site probably explains it better... :-)

Claire Keenan

Anonymous said...

FYI, the full cite in the UK for paper / microfilm use of TNA material is RG/Piece/Folio/Page (a series of numbers separated by slashes). Once you get to know them, the RG numbers are all you need to identify the type and year of the record. Hope that helps explain it. Claire Keena