Why you Shouldn't Trust the Census Returns

There are some things in life .. and in genealogy .. that we should all be able to trust as perfectly correct all of the time. For me, the meticulously compiled census documents recorded for the whole of the country every ten years have always been one such touchstone of reliability - but, after finally breaking down one of my brick walls, I have now learned that this is definitively not the case.

In the 1891 census, there is no listing for George Clarke Musgrave at any of the several properties owned or lived in by the Musgraves in Folkestone. Why?, well it turns out that he was actually in Maidstone, at the home of one Sarah Reif, a dressmaker, where he was probably on a business errand for his father .. but his name on the census return has been spelt as "Murigage". Then, to compound this even further, George Clarke's siblings, William Robinson and Grace Catherine, who were actually living at No. 12 The Leas are listed as the son and daughter of a Mr John Moore who is a Boarding House Proprietor and Head of House at No. 11 The Leas. Not content with this, the census enumerator then decided to make things even more confused by listing the two servants and the two boarders staying in William and Grace Musgrave's property at No. 12 - and the seven occupants of No. 13 as actually being resident in No. 11 .. ???

So, one census return, three relatives that I was attempting to research and, on just two of the two hundred or so pages of the census, fourteen errors. A lesson well and truly learned, methinks ...