Moonfleetonline

It's always reassuring when everything tallies. His mother is on both censuses, given as Emma and born in Richmond. Her occupation is a Laundress in 1881 and a Washer/Ironer in 1891. She is widow and the head of the household in both records, so I still know nothing of my great great grandfather but progress is going well.

The 1881 census shows some siblings, who had all presumably left home 10 years later. There are three sisters, one is still at school (scholar), the 13 year old is a domestic servant and her 18 year old sister is a ironer like her mother. It is this sort of information that makes family history so interesting to me. I can't imagine having to wash clothes, by hand, for 10 years. It must have been hard too for a 13 going into service. This was only 11 years after Foster's Education Act which introduced compulsory elementary education for everyone from the age of 5 to 12 years old.

The first signs of how the family moved around is beginning to show. Mother was born in Richmond, her eldest daughter (at least the eldest I know about so far), was born just over the Thames in Twickenham. The next in Hammersmith (where the family was living in 1881) but the youngest daughter was born in Ealing, again not far away but the family must have moved around quite a bit. Why I wonder. The youngest, my great grandfater was born in Hammersmith and that is where he and his mother were living in 1891 so they seemed more settled by then.

The census records give the address of course so it is fascinating to see where ancestors lived and to imagine how the place looked well over 100 years ago. Multimap is a very good way of finding locations, all you need is a street name (assuming it is not too common a name), if there are several, then various options will be presented and you simply choose the appropriate town.

My next search will be to go back another 10 years, and search the 1871 census and see if I can find anything about Emma's husband..