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 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