In 1841 the first useful census was undertaken in England and Wales (useful to genealogists, that is, as prior to 1841 names of individuals were not recorded.) The most recent census to be made available on-line is that of 1991 for England and Wales, whilst the Scottish Records Office has a searchable database covering the censuses of 1881, 1891 and 1901 in Scotland, and it is from all of these records that the following information has been gleaned :
ROWBERRY :
The data from the 1901 census has provided the information
that in 1901 my paternal grandfather, Wyndham Rowberry, was aged 10
and living in Tylorstown with his aunt and uncle, Edwin and Anne Rees,
and his 18-year-old cousin Edwin J. Rees. His parents, Alfred and Elizabeth
Rowberry (nee Rees) were living in nearby Nantyglo, to where they had
apparently moved some time between 1895 and 1897, since the elder children
were all born in Tylorstown and the latest, Edwin Charles, in Nantyglo
(as were the subsequent four born between 1901 and their father's death
in 1909.) The reason for Wyndham not living with his parents may be
deduced from the column headed "number of rooms occupied if less
than 5" when it can be seen that the family were living in 4 rooms
(presumably a 2-up-2-down cottage) and the Rees's in more spacious accommodation
and able to take in their eldest nephew.
It would appear at first glance that Edwin Rees would be Elizabeth Rowberry's
brother but their ages - he 63 and she 28 - give rise to the conjecture
that Wyndham was in fact their great nephew and Elizabeth their niece
... and was she in fact the person my father referred to as his "Granny
Rees?" For relevant census extracts and transcriptions, see this
page.
PRESTON :
George Ruslin Preston was living with his wife Alice Ann and their four
children George Welburn, Norman, Myrtle and Maude in Bridlington, East
Yorkshire, and working as a stonemason. The census does clarify one
thing - Alice was 38 when she died in 1905, not 35 (the engraving on
her gravestone is badly eroded and the final figure of her age could
be interpreted as either a 5 or an 8.) Their census entries can be seen
on this page, but further searches
for both Ruslin/Rusling and Welburn have so far proved inconclusive.
STEVENS :
A combination of the census information, family Bible records and actual
documents have given a wealth of information, much of it already known
to the family. The 1901 Census records Annie Stevens living at home
in Clover Hill with her parents and a niece, also called Annie Stevens,
and subsequent searches reveal the nearby home of her future husband,
Benjamin Evans (curiously transcribed as "Benjamine" in the
official census site and therefore rather hard to track down!) and Annie
junior's parents Albert and Sarah Stevens : for extracts and transcripts,
see this page.
HARLEY :
My maternal grandfather Kenneth Harley is proving very elusive. Only
one thing is certain from the 1901 census - he was nowhere in England
or Wales! The only Kenneth Harley listed in the UK census was a 4- year-old
born in St. Neots, and there are only three Scottish-born Harleys listed
aged 26 - 28, none called Kenneth and none of them a very likely candidate.
Searches of the 1881, 1891 AND 1901 censuses of Scotland also reveal
not a single Kenneth Harley anywhere in Scotland, leading one to presume
that whatever his name was, it certainly wasn't Kenneth!
A search of the 1881 census for the whole of Scotland reveals 41 male
Harleys aged between 16 and 18, five of whom were born in 1874 in the
Edinburgh area: two Jameses, a John, a George and an Alexander - their
birth registrations can be seen on this
page. No Kenneths, though .... so it looks like it's a dead end
as far as official records for "Kenneth Harley" go. After
digging a little deeper, however, I found out some interesting stuff
..... see this page ...!
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