Census 1895

The census was taken on 10 May 1895.   The data for the census was originally recorded on a geographical basis, recorded in three Departments – Rawson, Gaiman, and further west at the foothills of the Andes, 16 de Octubre.  Records were taken on a section basis within these 3 Departments, which are listed below.

Obvious family groupings have not been split up.  References are given for every name (see the last column).  For example, B1 refers to those living at the 1st counted household in the B census.  It was, however, not always clear from the census who was in a particular household.  Dependency relationships which are reproduced here from the original census unaltered (for example a child by the name of one father is still recorded with their mother who may have remarried and taken a different surname).

However there are problems with merely finding the names of persons with the same or close reference numbers.  For example, it was not always clear from the census if all those recorded as living together actually lived in the same house, or on the same land –  there were many single men sharing landholdings.  Census takers did not consistently record where a household started and ended, which poses problems for determining who was living with whom.  The reader should beware that there are some duplicate records of the same people (for example, Walter Roberts).  Sometimes the census takers recorded names in English/Welsh, and others converted names to the Spanish equivalent, and there are numerous spelling mistakes of names.  Phonetic equivalents of names should also be checked – for example Alsua and Alzua.  Lastly, it is not clear what period of the day the census was taken – it could be expected that if the census was taken during the day, that the male head of household could have been on another farm, and hence be recorded away from his normal family grouping.

“?” have been marked against those entries or names which were not clear.

Gaiman probably covered the western end of the Lower Chubut Valley, Rawson the easterly part of the Lower Chubut Valley, and 16 de Octubre covered the far western area at the foothills of the Andes.  See map reproduced in this fiche series.  The author did not record all persons in the Department of 16 de Octubre, only those people recorded as being or living with someone identified as being from the United Kingdom.  There were many native Argentinians and Chilenos in that part of the colony.  The 3 sections of the Department which had no people from the UK recorded were (i) Confluence of the rivers Senguerr and Mayo (ii) Chalia, and (iii) Paso de los Indios.

The column headings are explained below: