Annie Leontine Chipman and a Census Mystery

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog post. Until fairly recently my research has been of the mundane sort of finding and updating information on the many various branches on my tree. 

However, that was until a few days ago when I was waiting for a presentation I was giving on "Chipping Away at the Brick Wall" for the Southeastern Branch of the New Brunswick Genealogical Society to begin. In that talk I give examples of assumptions I've made in my research and Annie Leontine Chipman, my 1st cousin three times removed (and my 4th cousin 3 times removed...in two different ways...yes, my Chipman line is "interesting" at times), is one such example. I also like to periodically look for information about her since she led an very interesting life and constantly challenges any assumptions I've made in my research. Even her grave marker told an interesting tale since she is a recipient of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

 Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/167501062/anne-leontine-chipman : accessed 18 January 2022), memorial page for Anne Leontine Chipman (11 Feb 1864–10 Mar 1937), Find a Grave Memorial ID 167501062, citing Oak Grove Cemetery, Kentville, Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada ; Maintained by LMK (contributor 47573469).

However, this time it is about her being found in two places in census records of two countries almost at the same time.

Early on in my research days I had found her in the 1881 census of Canada in Kentville, Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. That census was taken on April 4, 1881.

1881 census of Canada, Nova Scotia, district 17, sub-district F-1, Kentville, p. 2, dwelling 5, family 5, Annie L Chipman; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 7 Feb 2013); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-13173.

There I found her in the household of her father Leverett DeVeber Chipman, her mother Nancy, and siblings Wilford (Wilford Henry Chipman), and Eva (Lena Evangeline Chipman). All simple and very straightforward...or so I thought.

As I mentioned, she keeps throwing me curve balls in my research and she did it again in the 1881 census. While waiting for the meeting to begin I pulled up Annie's profile in Ancestry and clicked on the search button not really expecting to find something. Yet I was in for a shock when Ancestry pointed me to an 1881 census in England for an Annie Leoline Chapman who was born about 1864 with "Nova Scotia Kentville (British Subject)" as the place of birth attending as a student at Kilburn College in Kilburn, Middlesex.

1881 census of England, Middlesex, Parish of Willesden, Kilburn, Ecclesiastical Parish of St Johns, folio 54, page 23, Alice Leontine Chapman; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 18 Jan 2022); citing PRO RG 11/1364.

Once I looked at the image I could see that it wasn't "Leotine" but there was an "n" added beneath that word as a correction so it read "Leontine". The place of birth and the age was right so just how was this possible? The 1881 census of England was taken on April 3, 1881 but she is recorded as being in the household of her father on April 4, 1881. There were no airplanes in 1881 so how did she travel more than 4,500 km in a day?

That is when I recalled Janice Nickerson's great presentation she gave titled "Ontario Census Fundamentals" for the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society in November 2021. She had mentioned that the Canadian censuses use the "de jure system" of enumeration. 

So just what does this mean?

In the "Manual containing The Census Act, and the instructions to officers employed in the taking of the second census of Canada, (1881)", of which a copy can be found on the Internet Archive, they state:

"The principle adopted for the registration of the population is that which is called by statists the population de droit or de jure ; that is, the population legally domiciled within the territory of the Dominion, and including all persons who may be temporarily absent from their place of abode, whether at the fisheries, at sea, or in the forest wilderness, &c."

Great.

But how does this really get applied in Annie's situation?

You have to keep reading further in the Instructions to the Enumerators where it states:

"Therefore, the names of seamen at sea, college students and school children, of the sick in hospitals, of inmates temporarily present in educational, charitable or penal institutions, are to be taken down in their own provinces, at their own domiciles or homes, and not at temporary abiding places or institutions. In other words, all living members of one family are to be registered as being present at the family abode, unless they are settled in homes of their own, or have left the country with intention not to return."

This matches Annie Leontine Chipman perfectly. She was attending school and she had left the country but she was going to return back to Canada after school.

How about the 1881 Census of England and Wales? In the "Census of England and Wales, 1881. Instructions to the Various Officers as to Their Duties in Taking the Census" the census was to be "...every living person who abode in every house on the night of Sunday the third day of April one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one..."

It would seem that Canada and England used different rules for determining who shall be enumerated where. That is how Annie can be in two widely separated places almost on the same day.

Of course, in the 30 minutes before I was to give the presentation I was madly creating a new slide for the assumptions section since this assumption of how the Canadian censuses were taken really bit me!