Hi Bethan
Yes, it must have been a very difficult task........especially the squallor,
as we know times were very hard.......there are pictures in books of the
early 1900's and the children and houses looked rather dirty and dilapitated
to say the least, so imagine all those years earlier, many places were
rural, so it's no wonder that some people are missing from the census.
Remember in UK when the poll tax came into being, lots of people are missing
from the census roll as they were charging tax per person in the household
over the age of 18........I know of quite a few people who were not
counted....so the information is only as good as what is given.
thanks for sharing this insight with us
Pauline
----- Original Message -----
From: <Brynaled(a)aol.com>
To: <carmarthenshire(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: [CMN-L] Quiet List
Just a thought for all of us who complain about enumerators and
their
oddities - a quote I came across the other day in the paper, a diary of a
woman
called Gladys Langford.
Working as a paid volunteer for the 1951 census she " almost
immediately
began to cry" as "the climbing of steps, the squalor of some of the
households, the inability to get a reply and the knowledge that I should
have to
retread the streets again and again, reduced me to near hysteria."
The above sounds truly horrendous. And I'd been moaning that they didn't
keep everything in order and were sloppy in their transcriptipns. Think
I'll
have more patience in future!
Bethan