OK, I'm re-purposing my blog. Who knows what I might put up here, but I'm going to start with some genealogy.

Today I'm going to try and track down Amelia Butler, baptised on 30 August 1835 at St Mary's in Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambridgeshire, the daughter of Thomas Butler (1814-1904) and Amy Barefoot (1815-1895).

What do we know already?
Well, in the 1841 census she was aged 7 and living with her parents at Church End in Swaffham Bulbeck (HO107/72/4 Folio 10B). Then we lose her entirely until she pops up in the 1881 census, again at her parent's house in Swaffham Bulbeck (PRO Ref RG11 Piece 1678 Folio 79 Page 24) listed as a cook and unmarried. Her age is given as 40 (she should be 46) but the name is correct as are her parent's names so this is definitely her. She then appears in the 1911 census at 95 Cowper Street, Hove in Sussex aged 75 and listed as an old age pensioner (Class: RG14; Piece: 5195). Sussex might seem a bit of a stretch but many of the Butlers moved to the Brighton and Hastings area and Amelia is recorded dying in Brighton in 1917 (GRO Death 1917Q4 Brighton 2b 276 Amelia Butler aged 81.) We also have a complete census record for Thomas and Amy and therefore know that Amelia was not at home in the intervening censuses.

First steps
Does anyone else know more than me? A Google search only shows information I already have. A search of Ancestry public member trees doesn't look too promising with seven trees; a couple of duplicates, one is mine, and one seems to have the wrong father. Viewing each of the tree I find no additional clues, in fact none of them have even the three census records. Intriguingly, one of the trees mentions that in 1875 she was a cook at Swaffham Bulbeck, but there is no citation, so nothing I can check as to where this information came from. I have a Kelly's trade directory from 1896 but she isn't listed in that and in fairness I didn't expect to find her in there, but it was worth checking. Anyway, we have confirmation that she worked as a cook.

The other census records
First efforts to find Amelia in 1851, 1861, and 1871 are a complete failure. I even try taking out 'Butler' then 'Amelia' from the searches but there is nothing even close. Let's start at the other end. Success with 1901! Amelia is living in Brighton at 2 Stone Street. Her birthplace is transcribed as Southam, Cambridgeshire but looking at the image I can see it is Swaffham, so I put in a correction to Ancestry. Sadly, she has no occupation listed but her age is 64 (66 expected) and she is unmarried.

Disaster!
1891 gets a hit as well; Amelia is a cook living at 2 Stone Street in Brighton aged 59 (expected 56) from Swaffham but, she is listed as a widow and the daughter of Sarah Hide aged 78 from Swaffham who is the head of the household and also a widow. What? Is the whole Amelia in Sussex a load of rubbish? I look at the record again and there are some boarders staying at the same address. A quick look in 1881, when Amelia was at her parents, shows a Sarah Hyde from Swaffham operating a boarding house out of 2 Stone Street. So, my new theory is that the enumerator got it wrong, Amelia was neither a daughter nor a widow.

I chase Sarah back through the census records. In 1871 and before that she is born in Hastings and operated a boarding house whilst doing laundry work following the the death of her husband, George, sometime between 1851 and 1861. At no point does she have a daughter called Amelia. That doesn't help with Amelia but it does show that the record is confused in 1891.

1851-1871
So back I go to searching the rest of the census records and no matter how broad I cast the net I can find no matches, hey ho. So what might Amelia have been doing? She could have been working abroad, although I doubt that in 1851 a 16 year-old would have done such a thing. Still, on the plus side, I did find her in 1891 and 1901, and that appears to be more than anyone else has done so far.