1911 Census

Posted by Ronan on Jul 25, 2009 in comment, ireland | 1 comment

So it’s nearly 100 years ago since my great-great-grandfather filled out a census in April of 1911.  You can get a pdf version of the census now from here, not all areas are covered but the site appears to be quite comprehensive. A bunch of counties were added recently including

Donegal, Cork, Galway, Wexford and King’s County (Offaly) are the latest batch of counties to be made available. Even though there is still some material missing (in particular, some Irish language returns, and corrections submitted by the public), we have decided to make the material immediately available, in the knowledge that the vast majority of our users will be able to find what they want.

So I downloaded the Skehill’s census and had a read.

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The questions are quite strange .. like if you had someone in the household that was mentally handicaped (or perceived to be ‘odd’) you as the head of the household had to differentiate between an imbecile, idiot and lunatic.  Put yourself  in the shoes of a 72 year old man in 1911..

For the record…

Idiot:
1. an utterly foolish or senseless person.
2. Psychology. a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.

Imbecile:
1. Psychology. a person of the second order in a former classification of mental retardation, above the level of idiocy, having a mental age of seven or eight years and an intelligence quotient of 25 to 50.
2. a dunce; blockhead; dolt.

Lunatic:
1. an insane person.
2. a person whose actions and manner are marked by extreme eccentricity or recklessness.
3. Law. a person legally declared to be of unsound mind and who therefore is not held capable or responsible before the law.

Another question was aimed at determining the education level.. you could choose – Read & Write, Read only or Cannot Read.  No place for a PhD so ! How times have changed.

I knew that Thomas Skehill (great-great-grandfather) had remarried and had more children late in life, his first wife died at child birth of the twin girls. My great-grandfather (James) was 28 at the time, married to Margaret expecting my grandfather (Thomas) who was born late in 1911.

I hope the 1901 records get scanned and uploaded soon so we can get a glimpse of who was around at that time. The Skehills tree needs some more work especially around the turn of the century.

If other Skehills come across this post you’re welcome to drop me a line. I’d be happy to hear from you.