1901 census oddity

[dot.hawkes]

can anyone suggest a likely scenario for the following:
1901 census, Limehouse, John Alexander ******* aged 61 widower living with his eldest son from his first marriage and family, John is recorded last in the household with marital condition widower. It is definately the tight person based on the age birthplace occupation and his son's details.
then: 1901 census Limehouse, mary ann ******* , lkiving with her son arthur, listed as his mother of course, but her marital status is given as widow. the age place of birth and everythinhg about her son and the other members of the household are right and it makes arthur john alexander's son too, they were all together on earlier census entries.
i have thought of two possibilities.
1) the fact john is with his eldest son, (who is 42 and from the first marriage which ended after 4 years cos the wife died) might mean the couple split up in their later years (john dies the following year 1902).
2) mary Ann was living at her unmarried sons looking after her 6 year old granddaughter who was living there as niece to arthur and i am not sure who's child that was but certainly arthur could not look after a child as he was working as a thames waterman, like his dad and brothers.

Anyone any other possibility? I have come across entries that didn;t quite look right, but this quite clearly says these two were widower and widow and they certainly were not. certainly mary ann wasn't a widow as he died the year after like i said.
could it just be lack of communication to the enumerator? mmmmm

[carolegif]

Is it written W for widow or in full? If it is just W, then could it be the enumerator's writing and it is an M?
I am an inputter for the 1891 census for rootsweb and some of the writing is very difficult to read and not just the copperplate! I have just had a family entered as Bruff instead of Brough! Cristeen entered for Christine. Of course you have to type in what the enumerator has written which is why it is very difficult when checking for an ancestor. I can't find my grandfather's family in 1901, but they could be 'strays' and may be entered later.
Other wise, in reply to your question, could it be two completely different families with the same name?

Good luck!

carolegif

[dot.hawkes]

Hi carole, i do and I don't envy you that job!!! I have earned over 100 credits on Find My Past simply by correcting the transcrption entries i have found during my researches.
It is quite clearly Wid and Widr on both of the original enumerators entries. The families are bang on correct, as John Alexander Vincent is living with his eldest son John Benjamin Vincent and Mary Ann Vincenmt is living with her son Arthur and her granddaughter, her eldest daughters child. It is a mystery, they are actually recorded as living within the same ED too, just a few folioc apart in the enumerators book. It is very odd, I am coming to the conclusion that it was down to a misunderstanding between the informant and the enumerator. We have yet to confirm the deaths of both of them after 1901 though.

Thanks for your suggestions, it's definately an odd one.

I use rootsweb forum sometimes and it is very useful, if ever I do get the time I would love to start some sort of transcribing, many years ago i did work with alot of 17th century wills and admons and that was very very interesting.

cheers

Dotty