Birthplaces be in 1921 census

[obdavies]

Like most people, I have a problem tracing the birthplace of my Irish ancestors. Usually in any England and Wales census it's simply recorded as “Ireland” and when on the very odd occasion when more detail was provided it is just as difficult, as in “Ufill, Queen’s County, Ireland”. I see that the 1921 UK census contains the guidance/instruction that “If born in the United Kingdom, write the name of the County and of the Town or Parish”.

I wonder if anyone has more knowledge of the 1921 UK census to be able to hazard a guess whether in those changing times, it’s felt the Irish, within those turbulent times would adhere to the above instruction or consider themselves as being born outside the UK? I appreciate that Ireland was still within the UK in 1921 but will the Irish in England and Wales at that time adhere to the above guidance or will they follow the further guidance that “If born outside the United Kingdom, write the name of the Country and of the State, Province or District” or “If not born in the United Kingdom state whether Visitor or Resident in the country and state also nationality if born in a foreign country”?

Am I heading for another let-down with the 1921 UK census, is anyone aware of how closely the request/instruction to name the town or parish of birth was followed in any part of the UK? I live in hope.

[Megan Roberts]

I don't know what we are going to see when the 1921 census is released, but I assume (which is always dangerous) that we will the schedules filled in the head of households that we have seen in the 1911 census, and for reading those we know that individuals often took their own unique approach to filling them in irrespective of whatever instructions may have been given to them, and then it just depends upon (a) how good their handwriting is and (b) how bad the cross out of the checkers is!

[obdavies]

Thanks Megan, roll-on January 2022 and let's hope they've all been conscientiously filled in to provide a few long sought answers

[Elwyn Soutter]

My guess is that in most cases the enumerator will probably have challenged or corrected entries that didn’t provide a place of birth according to the instructions. So you probably will often get a detailed place of birth in Ireland. The spelling may be unclear though, as you have already found with “Ufill.”

There were plenty Irish with strong political views in 1911 but most still completed the census correctly. In Ireland, to make a point, some completed it in Irish (in contrast to the 1901 which they nearly all completed in English), so that makes searching it and interpreting it trickier. Example here:

https://www.census.nationalarchives.i...ylahan/486491/

Here’s the whole townland, some in English some in Irish:

https://www.census.nationalarchives.i...ar/Derrylahan/

You sometimes see "information refused" where a person has refused to complete part of the form (often religious denomination), so I suppose you might see the odd one like that in the English census.

Probably worth mentioning that there was no census in any part of Ireland in 1921 due to civil disorder. There was one in 1926 and that’s due to be released in 2026. The portion for Northern Ireland has been lost (explanations vary, possibly German bombing in WW2). The portion for what is now the Republic of Ireland is safe.

[obdavies]

Thank you Elwyn, that's a very informative and interesting answer.

[Sumi]

Don't know if this will help but I have been in the same frustrating situation for years. My lot were all in Liverpool and although I had spent many hours at the Liverpool Record Office looking through parish registers, and there are a lot of parishes in the densely populated area that I come from!...I couldn't find any clues at all. However I got lucky when baptisms and marriages went online and I could search all parishes with name variants and I found 3 baptisms and 1 marriage that told me where in Ireland the father was from. These were RC baptisms and marriages.

[Guy Etchells]

It would all depend on the particular person.

Two questions that have not been answered is the electorate had the opportunity to return a sealed schedule if they did not want their details to be revealed.

1) Are all those sealed schedules included in the digitised census or not.
2) If they are included in the digitised census do they appear with the rest of the household or do they appear at the end of the enumerator's return. For those who have not seen a sample of a 1921 return visit

https://anguline.co.uk/pic/1921_sample.jpg

Cheers
Guy