Dear Ancestors of yesteryear,
I am so delighted that you were empowered to fill out the 1911 census forms yourselves, as many of you – mostly unrelated to me – have provided enormous hilarity through your quirky, eccentric entries on the schedules. From the women who refused to complete the form as they, in 1911, were not entitled to vote, to the people who (just in case it was needed) told us about their animals, deceased children and much more, you really have inspired the family and local historians of the 21st century.
You have provided material for several FWL blogs – particularly around Christmas when searching for ‘Santa Claus’, ‘angel’, ‘reindeer’ etc. – though that is generally due to the wonderful transcriptions of the people of today rather than amusement at what you had actually written back over a century ago.
In order to share the good humour, today I invite my friends, colleagues and genealogical followers to post here their finds in the 1911 census. And to start us off, here is Ernest Reeves Hillary who goes into great detail about the dry goods he has in his store in Petersfield:
His wife also has an interesting name and I have personally never heard of anyone called Katesegna. I sincerely hope that your 1921 census entries are as detailed. Little did you realise that we would be so interested …. all these years later.
Many thanks,
FWL
