Sunday, November 21, 2010

Where the Hookins' were in 1881


So where were all of our Hookins ancestors at the time of the 1881 Census. Well - the attached map seems to do the work for us as we can see the various Counties where a Hookins name/family existed and the volume of people of that name. The list on the right gives the actual numbers in each County. So that solves it right? Oh that Family History was that simple!!! It's a great start but not the whole picture as it only gives us 78 people and I know there were more than that. Unfortunately discrepancies can occur firstly because of the transcription of the original handwritten Census documents. I have found a number of entries for other Census returns which have been logged as Hookins which when magnified are found to be more like Hoskins. A second complication is that these returns were complied by asking questions and writing the result and with varieties of accents and the fact that the illiterate would not be able to spot an error the enumerator could only write down what he/she heard which results in numerous mis-spellings. I know of several instances where what was heard and written down was Hookings and not our family name. So although this map is extremely useful it is not conclusive.

No comments: