Census Question

[echokilo]

Looking at the link on ancestry, can anyone help with the address on this one: I thin it says "Fore Street M B " - the person I am interested is Thomas Mason, Dancing Master ............... but why are so many people with so many different professions listed at same address? TIA

[boxtops]

Perhaps it was a boarding house, houses of multiple occupancy were not unusual in the past.

[echokilo]

Here is the link: http://search.ancestr...t=r&ssrc=&pid=1106725

There are 12 other people on there - Thomas is 50 and a dancing master - all the others are between 6 and 17 years old (except one who is 25) and all but one are girls .................. could there have been some kind of dancing boarding school back then??

[carrot99]

I think Thomas is the last person listed for the house of John Old, dancing master and Martha and Frances Old school mistresses. I think the 1 in the column before the name indicates a new house in the street. There is a 1 in the column before John Old and another in the column before the chap below Thomas. It does look like a school but I don't know if it was boarding or not.

[Rose Maybud]

There is a // before Thomas Mason, so he should be the first occupant of the next dwelling. Perhaps the transcriber didn't see it, and of course you will never know how well the enumerator observed the instructions at the time.

http://www.census-hel...census-abbreviations/

This is just one site where abbreviations are explained.
I too am puzzled with abbreviations such as the MB in this case - haven't found a site to explain those. In this case I can only come up with Municipal Borough.

[Rose Maybud]

I have just looked at some of the other sites which explain abbreviations, and they don't all say the same...
Boarding houses were quite common - I found one in 1901 Westminster that housed about 70 drapers assistants - never realised there were so many!

[echokilo]

This is all great thanks everyone!!

[dotty.]

one oblique means same dwelling but seperate household, 2 obliques meant seperate dwelling.