Now for the 1881 census, let's see what has happened since 1871.
1881 census at Sidney Street, Cowley, Oxfordshire. Still living in Sidney Street, and still no house number shown.
An excerpt from the transcript of the 1881 census.
George Jeffery 48 Whitesmith. Harriett “ 47 William “ 21 Fireman and Gasfitter. Eva J. “ 16 School Teacher. Julia “ 12 (Name shown on census as Julia, should be Emily Julia! See 1871) Charles H.” 7 Born SepQ. 1873 in Headington. Charles Henry. (My grandfather!).
My paternal grandfather, whom I knew nothing about until I started doing genealogy. So here he is as a little boy living in Oxford, the “baby” of the family!
As you can see there has been one more child born since the last census,young Charles Henry, at last William has a brother. A little young but never mind!
Have you noticed that there is someone missing from the list? Alice Gertrude isn't there, where is she? How do you find out where she is? She may have married, to find that out, look on the freeBMD site, for a marriage from the time she was about 16 or 17 (as she was about 20 in 1881, that would be from about 1877). No marriage at the moment!
She may be staying with friends, how do we find out? Look for Alice G. Jeffery in the census records for this same year, 1881. We have a hit! She is not staying with friends, but is living in London, working as a domestic servant at The Rectory, Wandsworth, London. Quite a few girls “went into service” in those days. It was a way of getting more money for the family, and a mouth less to feed! The families at that time were usually quite large. George and Harriett had five surviving children, I'm saying “surviving” because there may well have been a child, or children, who died that I haven't been able to find out about! George's two younger step brothers, Edgar and Tom, had ten children each, (and also two wives each!).
Once the children started to grow up I found myself getting curious to know when, or even if, they married, what sort of careers they chose, and where they decided to live, etc.
I thought I would start with William, as he's the eldest. In 1881 he was 21 and a fireman/gasfitter, did he keep this as his career, did he get married? Let's find out! First stop, the marriage dept. of freeBMD. And we are in luck! In the DecQ. of 1882 William married Lucy Smith (from nearby Bicester), in Headington. Where they went to live and whether William stayed as a gasfitter we shall find out in the 1891 census! The next eldest child, Alice Gertrude, remember in 1881 she was 20, and a servant in a rectory in London. Did she ever get married? Let's try freeBMD and see what they have for us this time! Yes, here we are. In the DecQ. of 1888 Alice G. married Edward Thomas Doman in Headington. We'll find out more in the 1891 census!