NFHM Blogging Challenge - Week 1

Week 1 – Sunday 7 August 

August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories.

Census Night in Australia is 9 August this year and so we decided that Census stories should be our first week's theme. 

 The State Library of Queensland Census and Muster Records Info guide tells us that:

 "prior to 2001 it was Australian federal government policy to destroy all name-identified census returns for privacy reasons, and all returns between 1901 and 2001 have been destroyed."

You will notice if you look at the Card Catalog of Ancestry that there are a few census returns outside this time frame, but that between say 1902 and 1980, you will be relying on electoral records.  

Of course not everyone's ancestors were from Australia and we have been able to research census records from other countries.

What extraordinary things have you discovered about your family history in census records? Did you find your family where you expected them to be or were they in unexpected places and have you been able to work out why? What were households like in those days?  Were they very different from our own?  What has changed?

Share your stories with us on or around Sunday 7 August and link them using the Mr Linky widget below so we have one central place to read all the stories on this theme.