Just enter the Head of the Household?

Why not just enter the head of each household? Any unknown cousin that you are trying to contact should either enter all the household including the head thus giving you a match, or if they are using this trick will also just enter the head. You get a match either way. The only risk I can see is that they might only enter one person (not the head) for some reason.

 

Let me rephrase. Start off by entering just the head until you have entered every family that you know of (and intend to enter). This will capture most if not all of your matches. Later, at your leisure enter the rest. The overall time will be similar but you will start getting matches more quickly.

 

Yes, but still there are a lot of members with few or no ancestors entered and anything which encourages them to get entering is surely worth considering.

 

If they are genuinely interested, surely it is not a chore to enter all these households...? There are only 3 census years (England) and ancestors will not figure in all of these.

 

I was bit startled to see this suggestion BUT I realise that I do something a bit similar FOR RELATIVES BY MARRIAGE [caps intentional]. That is, where I have located someone who will marry into my tree but hasn't done so yet (e.g they may only be 10 in 1881) I tend to enter the 'future relative' plus the head of the household. I feel I want to capture that individual, but it would be misleading to include all the siblings, whereas including the father as well will flag a match with someone who enters the whole household. So, I recognise Webwiz's argument, although it's not something I follow for those related by blood.

 

Liberty, I sometimes add as a note : e.g. future father in law as a note on My Ancestors page

 

I have certainly gone forward from the 1911 census to capture "relatives" including mother and father in laws who will join the family at a latter date by tracing them back to 1881 and 1911. Like Emjay I use the notes section at LC to remind myself of my thinking and in some cases speculation. I am also planning I guess for the 1921 census to be available and will have a head start on who to look for! Certainly just prior to the 1914-18 war there seems to have been a flurry of marriages, and then again around 1919-1921 so it's worthwhile in my opinion.

 

An important point that has just occurred to me is how we define "head of the household". Much of the time among my 19th century family women were heads of the family because their mariner ( and a couple of military) husbands were away. Overall by 1881 the male head on the 1841 census had often died and the 1881 male head had died by the time of the 1911 census. Listing the female partner has the advantage of also recording their maiden names a very useful LC feature. Admittedly for the 1841 census this is a bit tricky if the marriage happened before last quarter 1837 and the reason I consult a variety of sources for those unions.

 

I think this doesn't matter for (most of) our purposes. The phrase was used here because it was suggested that only one name per household be entered - presumably the one at the top of the list. I can't think of any occasion in which the definitionof the term matters - other than when some tiresome person asks to speak to the 'head of the household' (which I don't think they do nowadays). It evidently caused confusion regarding censuses, as you can see fishermen's wives (of which I also have a lot on my tree) considering their absent husband the Head, whereas the census takers wanted someone who was in the house on census night. But if you are going to enter all the family inthe household, it doesn't matter two hoots what their 'position' was.