How do I search for an address in a census?

[Tinker]

It's the first time I've come up against this one, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm being a bit thick! I'm trying to find out a bit more about the area around a cork cutting business of my ancestor's, which was located at 358 Liverpool Road, Islington, through the 1880s. He never lived on the premises, so I can't put in his name and then do a search of the households on either side, and typing in just the address on the 1881 census popped up so many 'possibles' that I'd be there forever. Does anyone wiser than me have any suggestions or advice on how I might go about doing an address search in these circumstances?
Thanks.

[Sue Mackay]

You have to search via enumeration district. If you are at a record office they often have street indexes to help you locate the correct ED. Pay per view sites are all different, but if you are with Ancestry then bring up the search box for 1881, then scroll down below the search box, which you ignore, until you come to clickable links for each county. Then click on a parish and you get a list of the Enumeration Disrticts on the left - clicking will take you to the first page of that ED. On the right you can have the option of View Enumeration District, which takes you to the page showing which streets were in that particular ED.

[Astoria]

My thoughts too Sue, but there are 87 plus enumeration districts just for East Islington and 77 plus for West Islington.

Is there any other way of narrowing it down, just interested for future reference. :)

[Tinker]

Thank you, Sue. I shall trot off and try that!

Just seen Astoria's post, so perhaps I'd better wait around a bit!

[Astoria]

Ok Tinker,

The race is is on, you do East and I'll do West, I need a distraction my lot are driving me nuts. :D

[Astoria]

ED 1b Islington West has part of Liverpool Road up to 76, and a Fever Hospital which may help narrow things down a bit.

[Geoffers]

The race is is on, you do East and I'll do West,

I don't know for 1881 yet, but I've started with 1891

RG13/152 f37 p38
358 Liverpool Road, Islington

It's shown as in Lower Holloway Ward, West Islington.

So Astoria might get there first

[MaureeninNY]

Is this way off base?
1881
Robert Ruddock 45
RG11; Piece: 227; Folio: 51; Page: 50

Maureen

[Geoffers]

Is this way off base?
1881
Robert Ruddock 45
RG11; Piece: 227; Folio: 51; Page: 50


You just beat me, but Robert is at 356 (together with one other schedule), looks like Joseph Berton at 358

[MaureeninNY]

:)Iwasn't about to try that one!
Maureen

[Astoria]

ED 3 80 - 124
ED 5 St. Mary's Known as 126 - 296
ED 10 83 - 199
ED 13 207 - 299 ? plus a workhouse and poor relief offices (could be useful)
ED 14 281 - 329
ED 16 329 - 379

Now if I can only find the even numbers :)

I'm up to 25 will carry on.

[Tinker]

Curses, I can't access the ED info unless I'm a fully paid-up member, so that's scotched that one!!

Just as a matter of interest, what does Joseph Berton do? Is he trading from that address, or simply living in the house? I have another individual at 272 Liverpool Road whose daughter later marries my Charles Newton's son, so I got him up on Familysearch and tried using him to find my way to 358 Liverpool Road, but, after a while the addresses change to College Road (Street?...can't recall, now) so that wasn't much of a help either!

Astoria, your lot must be driving you nuts if you're doing this for distraction.....

[Geoffers]

Just as a matter of interest, what does Joseph Berton do? Is he trading from that address, or simply living in the house?

He was a paper hanger. If you get access to the census, you can look at what everyone is doing who lives around him

[Astoria]

Well I'm back from the West, I have only found one more reference to Liverpool Road ED 64 numbers 424 - 559, seem to be a bit of jumble, but none in the 300's that I could see. Of course I might have missed something.

Could part of Liverpool Road have been in East Islington I wonder.

[Tinker]

Astoria, there certainly doesn't seem to be any logic in how they do the streets. I went back to Familysearch and ended up in Station Road via Barnsbury Street and Upper Street, with a few detours here and there....!

Geoffers, I will do what you suggested; I hadn't thought of typing Joseph Berton's name in :o

[Peter Goodey]

Could part of Liverpool Road have been in East Islington I wonder.

A pertinent question :)

The LCC List of Streets (1929) shows -

S. Islington: 59-393; 2-294
W. Islington: 395-557; 298-436
Finsbury: 1-57

Those are electoral boundaries and may not necessarily correspond to what we want here.

PS I can't find anything in the 300s either

[Astoria]

Family search has it as Joseph Bertin with wife Margaret. Aged 30, born Hoxton.

[Tinker]

Just a thought, Astoria, try St. Mary's (civil) parish, Islington on the options page, and see if it pops up the bit you're after.

Geoffers, that worked a treat. It seems most of the neighbours were tradesmen, sometimes two trades to a property. The first firm date I have for 358 Liverpool Road being occupied by Charles Newton's cork business is 1884, courtesy of the Business Directory of London for that year, and by 1891, they had moved on to premises at 48 Holloway Road. (I also now know, thanks to you, that they weren't yet at 358 in 1881.)

[Torontoking]

Do all of the companies who advertise online British Census searches have the same information? For example, if I own an ancestry membership and have searched a census year without success for a particular name, would findmypast.com have different information on that census year? Additionally, does ancestry.com and genealogy.com hold the same information or is it worth having more than one subscription? :confused:

[Geoffers]

Do all of the companies who advertise online British Census searches have the same information

Census entries on different sites will contain the same information.

The problem may be in locating entries - some indexing is very poor - it varies greatly between companies. Some companies are very quick at acting on reported transcription errors, others are a little slower. Some sites do not yet have the whole census available online.


is it worth having more than one subscription?

No single web-site is perfect.

It is a matter of individual choice and a good reason not to subscribe in haste to any site.

[Astoria]

Now that is interesting, civil parish St. Mary's Islington brings up a whole new batch of enumeration districts in East Islington.

I think you have found what you were looking for though, am I correct?

[Tinker]

Slightly off topic, but following on from Peter Goodey's comment, some of the addresses no longer exist, either. I could find 358 Liverpool Road on Multimap, but not 272 Liverpool Road, and the same applied for 48 and 107 Holloway Road: 107 is still there, 48 is not. The remaining numbers don't seem to be particularly logical either, 200 being roughly level with Barnsbury Street, 250 with Brooksby Road and 285 with Lofting Road which is between Barnsbury Street and Brooksby :confused:

Astoria, I keep crossing posts with you, don't I? Yes, I've got what I wanted now, thanks, but at least, hopefully, I provided you with some entertainment for the afternoon. I wondered if St. Mary's might not give you the goods, as it crops up a lot on the older census returns for my Newtons.

[Astoria]

I have the same problem with Morecambe folk, as areas were demolished the remaining bits of street were re-numbered, I find I have to work backwards or forwards from a pub, fortunately there are plenty of them.

[Geoffers]

Slightly off topic, but following on from Peter Goodey's comment, some of the addresses no longer exist, either..

It's a good point and one of the reasons why it is worthwhile investing in directories, and maps of varying periods to show how places have chancged over time. A good selection is available via The Parish Chest (http://www.parishchest.com/) and secondhand bookshops are always worth browsing for what is available, record offices are amine of information. The more resources you have, the better the chance of understanding what happened to your ancestors, why they stayed or moved, changed work, etc. Not everything can be found via the pay-per-view sites.


I find I have to work backwards or forwards from a pub, fortunately there are plenty of them.

Fieldwork of this kind of course has its own rewards |5cups|

[Tinker]

I agree with you about the directories and maps, Geoffers. I have 3 different London A-Zs: a 30s version, an early 80s version and a fairly recent one, plus a couple of reprinted ordnance survey maps from 1894 covering Highbury and Islington, and Wood Green, and the collection keeps growing!