Census recording query

[earthmother]

I have a recurring problem, and I wonder if it is something to do with the way data was collected at the time.

I have Romanies in my tree - and because they intermarry several times, I've gone into more detail on the siblings of my direct line than I would usually. I can trace them all quite well between 1901 and 1871, but I have yet to find one family or person on the 1861 or earlier.

So - would this have been the Romanies themselves not doing the census, or the enumerators for the way they recorded them (I have a couple of occassions on the later returns where it is a '3 families in tents on the common' type of entry, with the family groups all mixed up - did they maybe not even bother to take names in 61, and if so, how do I find them?). Was the census compulsory from 1841, or was it not truly enforced until 1871?

[Jan1954]

Our very own Guy Etchells has produced the Enumerators' Instructions for each census. This (http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/census/1861directions.htm)is the one for 1861.

The part that you may be interested in is that which follows paragraph 6.

I hope that it is of some help in answering your query. :)

[earthmother]

Thank you - so it looks like I need to look to the last pages of a set - at least (for Romanies) they appear to have stayed in roughly the same areas :)

[earthmother]

I've started my search and may already have found some - 2 families 'in a tent' in the right area - no names were taken, but the ages were noted, and one family matches up almost perfectly to one of my groups - I'll never know for sure, but in the absence of anything more concrete, I'd like to think that was them :)