Living apart choice or neccesity?.....

Post by **joette** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:27 pm

I've had a feeling about this GGGGrandfather since I first discovered him.
Just didn't feel "right" & I felt he was "apart" in some way from his family.
Decided to give the Census a wee look & in 1841 there is his wife & eldest children living in Greens of Altmore with an Alexander Craib-55(who he is ?)& Isobel Craib-25.
No sign of George McKimmie.
1851 we find Grange-Banffshire-ED-5-Balnamoon-(the family are still here come the 1891 Census)
Isobel McKinney-Wife-M-F-37-Farmer 2acres AR.4 heath-Ordiquihill-Husband works in other district!
Children aged 10-1 are there & Father George is here
Grange-Banffshire-ED2 Manse of Grange.
Working for George Jamieson who is the Minister of Grange Est.Church Presb & farmer of 4 acres.He is employed as Farm Servant.
So is this just financial neccesity that had him working for somebody else & living apart from his family? Would this have been a common practise?
He is not living with the family at any time that I can see & he dies elsewhere too-still in the same area.
They had eight children so I can see that money would have tight but there births are spread over 22 years.
So is this just a "feeling" or did they in fact live apart for whatever reason but not just because of the money!
I know it is hard to envisage the life they must have lived that this may not have been a choice but dire need.
Any ideas?

Post by **Jean Jeanie** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:23 pm

Hi Joette

Because I have been transcribing 1841 and 1851 censues for Freecen, it has given me an insight as to how things were then.

In more household's than I care to mention, there is a wife and children, no husband.

Presumably the husband is working away from home and resides with his employer, only coming home now and then, when he had the time and the money. Remember transport wasn't like it is nowadays.

I have also come across a few corrected entries where a husband has been enumerated as being at home, only to be corrected later and a note added that he had been enumerated at "his master's home"

Jean

Post by **AnneM** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:39 pm

The sad thing is that there are still societies today, some relatively prosperous where it is common practice for parents to have to live away from their children with their 'masters' to make a living and all the political reform in the world has not done away with this.

Anne