Who lived in your home 100 years ago?

[davesgcr]

Built 1934 , so it was a field in 1921 !

The 1939 "Register" is available in the library , so a good look indicated it was a Railway engineer for the LMS . The neighbours were advert salesman for the "Evening News" , across the road a Jewish family who had vacated Germany, a coal salesman for a Northern colliery company , and another railway manager. Decent mix.

You can look it up for free (if you have a membership card) at the National Archive in Kew , Aberystwyth and somewhere else. Excellent stuff.

 

[wayward bob]

ETA: I've just checked the 1911 census (14 day free trial on findmypast)

ta for this

1881 - not built

1891 - john, 38, house carpenter, his wife celia, 27 and her widowed father, also john, 85 (!). the household spoke both welsh and english.

1901 - christopher, 36, smith’s hammerman, his wife sophia, 40. christopher was born in switzerland, sophia was local and spoke welsh.

1911 - samuel, 42, a joiner from anglesey, his wife catherine, 40, sons john, 10 & leonard, 8. bilingual household.

1921 - joseph, 43, finance clerk at the ministry of pensions, his wife ada, 34, and son, leslie, 5. both local, only english spoken.

 

[ska invita]

is there any other way of searching addresses, from 21 or earlier, without signing up to this thing?

 

[weepiper]

ta for this

1881 - not built

1891 - john, 38, house carpenter, his wife celia, 27 and her widowed father, also john, 85 (!). the household spoke both welsh and english.

1901 - christopher, 36, smith’s hammerman, his wife sophia, 40. christopher was born in switzerland, sophia was local and spoke welsh.

1911 - samuel, 42, a joiner from anglesey, his wife catherine, 40, sons john, 10 & leonard, 8. bilingual household.

1921 - joseph, 43, finance clerk at the ministry of pensions, his wife ada, 34, and son, leslie, 5. both local, only english spoken.

Tied house? Seems unusual that nobody lived there from one census period to another for so long.

 

[nogojones]

6 people in a two up, two down.

Robert, Agnes, their 2 sons and one daughter and a lodger Thomas.

Robert was guard on the Great Western, which doesn't come as a surprise as pretty much everyone round here worked on the railways for decades.

Agnes looked like she was a housewife.

Thomas was a chippy for the council.

All the adults were born in Llanelli and must have moved down here before they had the kids.

I know that the couple of streets round by me are the oldest this side of the river, being built in the 1870's and at least 20-30 years before anything else in the area.

 

[davesgcr]

is there any other way of searching addresses, from 21 or earlier, without signing up to this thing?

Some libraries have paper copies (bound volumes really) of street guides which list properties and the houseowner , or chief renters only. A very well known firm was Kelly's Guides, which ran for very many years from about 1890 or so.

 

[Sprocket.]

Our current house is only twenty years old, but our previous Edwardian semi built in 1905 original occupants included one Catherine Earnshaw. Many a windy, winter’s night we half expected her devastated spirit arriving through the ether and rattling the window!!

 

[Cloo]

My dad found where 3 of his grandparents were living on the 1901 census - all around Brick Lane, but only address still extant is where my great grandma Bessie was born, on Brick Lane itself, currently a schwarma restaurant.

 

[Poot]

Okay, so my Royal Navy engineer has two dependent children but only one living at home (aged two - and he's 51). And since women weren't important enough to ask, we don't know how many children his wife has, but she came from the North East. There's clearly a story here which we'll never know because we only have his surname and it's quite common. Damn you, the patriarchy! Maybe it's his first wife's shoe under the lounge and her foot is still in it.

I have had Covid since Wednesday and have been binge watching Buried in the Backyard. Can you tell?

 

[wayward bob]

Tied house? Seems unusual that nobody lived there from one census period to another for so long.

mr b says murder house, look away

 

[mx wcfc]

Where is/was the workhouse?

It's just to the west of the railway line, next door to Orams Arbour if you know the area.

 

[StoneRoad]

Our house was built for a local quarry manager, around 100 years ago.
Depending on when exactly it may show up on these new resources.

Will be interesting to have a play with the various census [& the 1939 register] etc in a while.
I feel "doing the family tree" coming on.

 

[discokermit]

the next field to the right of the field where the "l" of "cinder hill" is. just above the 600.




my ancestors came from the hurst hill, cinder hill and deepfields settlements going back hundreds of years.
my mom was born in the field with "coal shaft" a couple of field to the right of where i am now.
my dad was born on hollywell street at the junction with hursthill road.
his dad was born down the little lane opposite the methodist chapel.
his mother was born where it says "breen rhydding colliery".
my dads, dads dad was born in meadow lane, deepfields (top right). As was my dads dads dads mom.
my dads dads mom was born in the "backend", the lanes that go between hursthill road by the methodist church and hollywell street. her grandad was born at cinder hill.

 

[discokermit]

.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

is there any other way of searching addresses, from 21 or earlier, without signing up to this thing?

Some libraries have paper copies (bound volumes really) of street guides which list properties and the houseowner , or chief renters only. A very well known firm was Kelly's Guides, which ran for very many years from about 1890 or so.

as i mentioned (but didn't provide a link) earlier, leicester university have a lot of these online here (you can download an entire directory as PDF if you feel so inclined) - at the risk of stating the obvious, bear in mind that county boundaries aren't all what they are now, and Kellys' cut off between 'London' and 'London Suburbs' seemed to change from one year to the next.

But not sure if all householders, especially in smaller / rented properties, are listed.

again, a few things worth bearing in mind for this and census info -

some streets simply don't exist any more, re-development has changed the street pattern

the national library of scotland map collection can be useful (covers all the UK - not everywhere has got the largest scale maps up yet, though) - you can either fade in / out of current mapping or do a 'side by side' map with current map or satellite view.

some streets have been re-named for one reason or another (in london, the post office and london county council made an effort to remove duplicated street names within each postal area. there's a - london specific - listing of these here.)

some streets had the houses re-numbered (either where one road had been joined up with another, or where the house numbering used to be 1, 2, 3 up one side of the road and back down the other - there are a handful of these left.) The Kelly's directories usually listed each side of the road separately, and would break the list up with 'here is side street' which can give a bearing.

Tied house? Seems unusual that nobody lived there from one census period to another for so long.

dunno.

i get the impression that home owners tended not to move house as much as they do now, but renting was fairly insecure, so people seem to have moved a bit more often (although often staying within a small neighbourhood) - I did pursue a possible (on reflection, probably not) distant relative through victorian hoxton on the census.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

 

[Pickman's model]

is there any other way of searching addresses, from 21 or earlier, without signing up to this thing?

your local archives will be able to help there - many local authorities will have a subscription to ancestry which can be used by any visitor, contact your local archives to see what they offer. they may also have an index to their own microfilm census returns, and they'll have local directories too. as i understand it findmypast are charging per image views while this is all included in an ancestry subscription.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

while this is all included in an ancestry subscription.

have ancestry got the 1921 census, though? what i read implied that only one of the others had got it.

most of them do also offer a free trial membership (think mum-tat did that when she was doing some research) but this may involve them hoping you will forget to cancel before the deadline / making it as difficult as possible to cancel...

on the subject of ancestry, they also have the phone book archive which can be useful (although the proportion of individuals on the phone took some time to grow)

 

[Pickman's model]

have ancestry got the 1921 census, though? what i read implied that only one of the others had got it.

most of them do also offer a free trial membership (think mum-tat did that when she was doing some research) but this may involve them hoping you will forget to cancel before the deadline / making it as difficult as possible to cancel...

on the subject of ancestry, they also have the phone book archive which can be useful (although the proportion of individuals on the phone took some time to grow)

i saw this

which made me think ancestry did have it but on checking i see it's only fmp

 

[rutabowa]

Benjamin Baker, meat salesman, and family who all worked for him.. business was in leadenhall market

 

[fishfinger]

100 years ago it was all fields:

 

[MickiQ]

We're only the second family to live in our house, it was built in 1990 and we moved here in 2000, they were a married couple with three kids and the Dad had to move for work which is about all I can remember about them though we must have their names somewhere on the deeds. Before that I am sure it was just fields.
My Mum's Dad owned a couple of other houses besides the one he lived in and one of them was a tiny terrace that was occupied by his sister who he took care of after her husband died (we always referred to her as our spare grandmother)
The house needed modernising a few years before she died so she moved in with my parents whilst it was done. When the builders stripped the plaster they sound some carved brickwork to the effect that it had been built in 1813.

 

[smmudge]

Ours was built in the 30s but looked up my parents edwardian house. 3 women aged 62-89, 2 sisters and a half sister. Seems nice, probably quite comfortable.

Eta and all 3 single, not widowed. A former housekeeper, former professor of piano and former head of a finishing school in Paris.

Good to know who my childhood ghosts were

 

[danny la rouge]

It doesn’t cover Scotland. And the 1921 census isn’t available here yet in any case. I’ve tried Scotland’s People website for other years, but there’s no obvious way to search an address rather than a name. Anyone got any experience there? Or is my only option to get David Olosoga to make a documentary?

 

[Pickman's model]

It doesn’t cover Scotland. And the 1921 census isn’t available here yet in any case. I’ve tried Scotland’s People website for other years, but there’s no obvious way to search an address rather than a name. Anyone got any experience there? Or is my only option to get David Olosoga to make a documentary?

this has been a longstanding issue with the online censuses. the microfilms in archives can only be searched by address; the online version can only be searched by name. so you need to know someone nearby at the time (for which local or regional directories can be useful) when looking for an address online. some old directories are available at Historical directories | Archives and Special Collections | University of Leicester. but very few. with the way pub history is recorded you may have more luck by finding a pub near your desired address and looking at what history you can find for there online (see this example): hopefully a landlord's name, and hopefully they were resident.

 

[seeformiles]

Nobody since it wasn’t built until 1933. Our previous house (a 2-bed back to back) however was built in 1893 and the deeds stated that the owner in 1921 was a war widow who died herself of TB a few years later. Some very interesting covenants in the deeds for that property prohibiting its use as a “fried fish shop” or “brothel” - not to mention the use of the garden* for the “installation of a merry-go-round” or for storage of a “house-on-wheels”.

(* the garden was about 10 ft square so rather unlikely )

 

[geminisnake]

Our house wasn't built til after WW2 so I'd guess at various crops, possibly some mice, maybe a fox and other rural wildlife living on the land where it is and probably elks, wolves and other Scandanavian wildlife lived in the wood that is now our home(old kit house)

 

[Pickman's model]

Our house wasn't built til after WW2 so I'd guess at various crops, possibly some mice, maybe a fox and other rural wildlife living on the land where it is and probably elks, wolves and other Scandanavian wildlife lived in the wood that is now our home(old kit house)

which country are you in?

 

[geminisnake]

the electrician said he could see a ladies' shoe buried under the lounge floor. I wonder about that more than anything else tbh.

fairly sure that's an old protection charm/superstition

 

[geminisnake]

which country are you in?

NE Scotland. Apparently our house was the first built here and the furniture had to be carried in through a field, Bob who used to live a few doors down helped with the move, not sure when the road at the front got put in. We're the 2nd tenants in this place.