Today, while watching Andy Murray beat Roger Federer, I was wondering if my ancestors and rellies moved around much. So I downloaded the information on the people on my website and played around with it a bit....
What data would best serve this purpose though? I thought about the early censuses and then discarded them; I know that some Cambs info is missing in 1861 and didn't want that to skew the results. In the end I chose the 1881 and 1911 returns.
And? The only significant conclusion to be drawn? 10% fewer people in Cambs in 1911 than there were in 1881. The 4% drop in Huntingdonshire residents wasn't really surprising as the majority of those (in 1881) were Culpins and they had scattered by 1911. I had expected a massive rise in those living in the Greater London area but there was only a 1% rise - proving the first rule of genealogy: Never Assume!
By now I was fully into "statistics mode" and decided to download birthplaces (as you do). For comparative purposes, I looked at "my people" born in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. I'm guessing that paucity of information led to the highest 18th century figure being for "Place of birth Unknown". Other percentages followed the pattern of the census places, in that Cambs has the most births, Greater London has 2% more in the 20th century than the 19th, and the Hunts figure goes down by 4% in the 20th century.
So, all in all, I don't know what to make of my little stats exercise. Interesting, certainly; and it gave me the chance to correct some errors! I'm sure I could find some significance if I were to sit down and look at it properly, without the distraction of the Olympics!!
More soon.
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