#ancestry stuff

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

So, a fun thing I recently discovered is that you can do a basic search of the UK censuses up to 1911 for free online: https://ukcensusonline.com/

The information it gives you for free is very limited, just a person, the place at the time of census, age, and sometimes a profession. Most of the professions are as you might expect- "farmer" "domestic servant" "tin miner" and so on- and some of them are outdated as you might expect e.g. "hawker" "stone cutler" etc.

Occasionally there's one that appears to be improperly transcribed, for example I think "daisy worker" is more likely to be "dairy worker", and sometimes there's one that surprises you, for example someone who shares my surname was an "analytical chemist" in 1911, and in 1901 one of my more forward thinking ancestors was an electrical fitter's apprentice.

Occasionally, though, there are occupations that appear to be clear confusion on the part of the census taker- for example I don't think Alice X was a "farmer's son", although if she was, more power to her. Another person is described as a "planning machine" and one simply as "boy". I also enjoy the distinction of "scholar" and "at school" for some of the children.

My most interesting discovery so far is a female university student in 1911!

Anyway, it's been a fun way to spend an afternoon and get a little insight into how some of my ancestors lived!

[forcearama]

I get that a lot of Europeans find Americans' "ancestry" stuff insufferable (for the record no one has ever been mean to me to my face about it, but I know it's a thing AND I get why.)

It WOULD be super annoying if someone was like "yeah I'm SUPER [whatever]; my family came to the US in 1750!". And if someone off the street anywhere asked me "what" I am, I mean...I'm (US) American? Unless they are specifically asking about my ethnic background? Of course I am American. I was born here, and raised in the culture here.

BUT. SOME of us, even now -- many WAY more recently than me -- have family who just got here. One of my parents was RAISED in part by someone who was from a different country thousands of miles away. My English even NOW has a ton of Dutch and German and Polish words in it, that are beyond the general English lexicon, that my parents and grandparents were raised with. Would you tell my friend who was a DACA kid, but has lived in the USA since she was like 7, that she's not even at ALL Mexican because she lives here now?

It's just a weird place to be in sometimes, culturally. No one that I am related to spoke English until like 100/150-ish years ago. That might SOUND like a long time but I also just buried a family member who was almost 100 in the last year. 100 years is nothing.

[tipsywench]

Looking into my civil war ancestor and one thing that I find really interesting is he got married right after the war, in 1865, but they didn't have their first child until 11 yrs later. And then after that's it's like every 2 years they have another baby.

That's making me curious about whether they adopted some kids after being unable to have children. But I've never seen any documents or heard stories or rumors about their kids being adopted. (this stuff isn't that distant from me, the Civil War soldier was my great-grandpa's grandfather, and my g. grandpa was still alive until the early 2000s, and he never said anything about his father being adopted)

But was that sorta thing just not talked about during the 1800s? Maybe even kept from the kids themselves? Would there even be documents? Or who knows, maybe my ancestors were just really really ignorant about sex for like 11 years of their marriage (or maybe they were really good at making sure the wife never got pregnant until they wanted babies lol).

[musicallymaniacal]

I recently found out that I can understand Welsh language without ever having spoken it

[juliannos]

random ancestry ramblings

you learn a lot of interesting things when looking into family history. the most impressive so far is the great-great-grandfather who had FIFTEEN CHILDREN

he started when he 27 and kept going until he was 63

[frogytoad]

my family appears on both the 1901 and 1911 censuses and apparently my grandfathers family was bilingual but my grandmothers were anglophone which i think makes sense based on where each of their families originate

[footnoteinhistory]

one of my ancestors volunteered for the war when he was 18 years old. he fought with the 29th Missouri and was captured, paroled, and rejoined his regiment before being captured again. he was 20 years old when he was sent to Andersonville and suffered there for 167 days before dying of a completely curable illness, had the prison camp been sufficient at all

another man from his regiment deserted before their first battle, was arrested a year later, and returned to the regiment. he was shot in the hand and allowed to go home to his family

it’s things like that that frustrate me sometimes... why should a brave young boy who volunteered and fought and suffered for his country die alone, painfully and hundreds of miles from his family, never getting the chance to live a real life, when a deserter gets to go back home and grow old with his wife and children

[lesbirdan]

so apparently i have a great-great-grandmother who just sort of ... appeared on our family tree out of nowhere

all we know about her is that she was born “in a town that is now underwater”, mom can only find a death record, her other records could have been destroyed when the town was flooded -- anyway we can’t find anything about where she’s from

so maybe ... ?