Daughters or Step Daughters? Week 7 _ 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Daughters or Stepdaughters?  What does the Census suggest? 

I was prompted to look at this question  when researching my great grandmother Alice Ann English,  born in 1851 in Beverley, Yorkshire, daughter of of Charles English and Mary Harrocks. 

The 1851 Census, taken in March of that year,  showed a small family of Charles, Mary and two daughters -  Mary aged  7 and Elizabeth 3 years old.

Ten years on in 1861  the census listed:  

Charles 43, Head

Mary 41, wife 

Elizabeth, daughter,  aged 13 (so born c. 1848)

Alice Ann, daughter, aged 9 (birth registered September 1851)

Isabella Caroline, daughter, aged 8

Harriet Elizabeth, daughter , aged 2.  

 Eldest daughter Mary was not with her family but thought to be the 17 year old (so born c.1844),  working  as a domestic servant with another family.

 But in tracing  the marriage of  Charles and Mary Harrocks, I discovered this was only registered in June 1850. What was the story behind the two eldest daughters born in 1844 and 1848, before this marriage.    

The reality was that Charles had had a first marriage to Elizabeth Barker who had sadly died shortly after the birth of her second namesake daughter in 1848. 

 Conclusion:  So young Mary and Elizabeth were not the daughters of  Mary Harrocks but the step daughters -  and the Census did not reflect this relationship.  

Nor did many public family trees on Ancestry  reflect this relationship, wrongly showing instead   that Mary Harrocks was the mother of all five daughters.    

 So the message  is - always to check dates  and show the correct relationship in your family tree. Census Returns are not always absolutely correct in showing the correct birth mother. 

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