THOUGHTS ON...
With all its faults, fibs, flaws, omissions and occasionally eye-watering insensitivity, censuses have arguably been the family historian’s greatest friend. I still remember the long-ago frisson of finding 3x great-grandparents in the 1851 Census, recorded as local carriers. I’m pretty sure I squealed. I was at college doing English and Social History, and it felt just as if two Thomas Hardy characters had jumped off a page and into my own story. Being then a townie who’d always longed for the rural life it was magical.
It took years to piece together the ups and downs of their lives. Perhaps the most poignant find was the newspaper account of the sale of their carrier’s cart and horse after my ancestor’s death, at which time his wife became distracted and ended up first in the workhouse, only to die in a lunatic asylum. All this decline happened between 1861 and 1871. A seemingly happy life shattered. Apart from the 1911 census, the same thing happens to those unfortunate children who lived and died in the space between censuses. A lot happens in ten years.
So you will see why I was delighted to discover that the 2022 census for Ireland, delayed one year due to Covid, and sensibly taken every five years instead of ten, has a fabulous new feature, one that I would earnestly hope all future censuses everywhere will include, though I won’t hold my breath. It’s called a Time Capsule page and is a dedicated space to leave a handwritten message for descendants, future generations, and historians.