I have been involved in the abstraction of 1881 census data for several parishes since getting roped in at the open day at Tredegar House last September. What may at first glance seem to be a little tedious has been anything but. As you transcribe the original data, and often verify from other sources, you come across all sorts of interesting entries.
Image: Peter Britton
Whilst transcribing Dyffryn parish I discovered that Lord and Lady Tredegar spent the night of the census at their London address and Tredegar had a skeleton staff head by a young servant in his early 20's. I had a Frederick Morgan who spent the night at his mother's house in Nash and who gave his occupation as Australian Bushman. One woman, in the column for Blind/Deaf/Dumb, noted her servant's disability as "bad-tempered". Another woman declared her husband had "run-away". And in Chepstow the occupations ranged widely from professional classes, through shipbuilding trades and iron foundry workers to bobbin turners and a full range of shopkeepers. I had (as-yet) unnamed infants aged 6 hours and 1.5 days old. I also had people born overseas in India, Jamaica, Denmark, Italy, Germany, France and America.
It has been a fascinating exercise to-date. Thank goodness for the internet, but I'd like the museums and archives to open to progress some research into the personalities of Chepstow in the 1870's and 1880's.
Martyn Swain
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