Aldershort Query: Which County in 1911?

[David_Underdown]

If you look at the organisation of the census records within Discovery, using Farnham registration district as an example (I suspect similar will be found for Anglesey etc)

 

The census returns for each census are treated as a separate record series, so 1891 Census is RG 12, 1901 is RG 13 and 1911 is RG 14.  Each series is divided into subseries, each named for counties etc, then each Registration District is then treated as a subsubseries, then each piece within that is the volume for an enumeration district (subseries and subsubseries are not represented in the citable reference of a piece, so you only see this organisation by using the browse by hierarchy option with Discovery).

 

So for 1891 this http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C131456 shows how the pieces representing each enumeration district sit within the subsubseries for the Farnham registration district.  While for 1901 try this link http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C149962, and 1911 http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C151766.  You'll also see that the piece references mention RS - this is registration subdistrict.

 

As you look at the piece descriptions along the right hand side you will probably notice that in 1891 and 1901 the descriptions for those pieces including Aldershot actually say "Aldershot (Hants)", while in 1911 it merely says "Aldershot".  This is possibly where the difference lies.  This catalogue data is usually (essentially) provided by the transferring department at the point the records are handed over to The National Archives, so in this instance ultimately the Office of National Statistics.  For the earlier censuses there has been a much longer period of time to clean up and enhance the cataloguing too of course.

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

Thanks David,

I don't really understand your explanation, all I see as an end user is that the index is clearly even nonsensically wrong.

I know that, I can work around it.

The other folks on here all now know about the problem now , and may explore their own home areas to see if it affects them, and they can work around it.

 

Unfortunately hundreds of thousands of people world wide, looking for data about their ancestors don't know about this and won't be able to work around it.

 

I can imagine conversations in Australia like "Grandma, did your Dad ever live in Caernarvonshire?

"Good God no, he never left the Island of Anglesey once until he went to war".

"Well in that case Grandma, this guy ain't 'im. We can't ever find where he lived in 1911.

Well that's  a shame, that's as far as we can go! The end of the line. So near, so far etc etc..."

 

A great shame, and not an error that anyone seems to have any interest in correcting.

[David_Underdown]

Ideally the systems would simply recognise that a registration district covers more than one county and so searches would return results whether you searched for Aldershot, Surrey or Aldershot, Hampshire (certainly FreeBMD for example will return births registered under the Farnham district even if you have said to search Hampshire).

 

The archival principle is to reflect the original arrangement of the records, and in this instance all the returns for Farnham (etc) were put under Surrey, as most of the registration district was in that county.  Of course those filing systems were designed for use by ONS staff who understood these wrinkles.

[Guest]

This link appears to show the registration district of Farnham with dates. I note it was also overlapping with towns in Sussex. 

 

http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/genuki/Reg/districts/farnham.html

Edited 16 November , 2016 by Guest