We are fortunate that so many records are now available online to provide us with the history of the CUF(F)LEY family. The question I ask myself is how many people are there in the family and have I found them all. To this end I have a calculation of the CUF(F)LEY population based on the GRO (General Registry Office, now known as the Office of National Statistics) for birth death and marriage indexes (BMD). The only way of checking this figure is to find the families in each of the census. At present the 1841 total of people found is 175, that is 39 more than the number using the GRO figures. This is not surprising as the registration of BMD was not compulsory at that time and with a population that was ill-educated and poor they were not keen to obey the government’s rules and regulations to register.

Registration started in the later part of 1837 (1st July) in England and Wales. The indexes were hand written up to 1865 and typewritten after that time.

Births up to 1875 when registration became compulsory means that a number of births were not registered mainly those of illegitimate children. From the 1911 in the birth indexes the mother’s maiden name is given, it was not previously. The marriage indexes after 1911 also have the maiden name of the wife as well as the groom’s name. The death register indexes give the age of death from 1866, but not before. This may not be accurate depending on the relationship of the informant and the information they were told by the person when they were alive. Some people lost a few years at times in their lives and may have come to believe their own fictitious ages by the time they were old.

Cross referencing these indexes against the Census to discover the population of the family is difficult as some people lied about their age and where they were born. They may also have used within the family a name that was not on the baptism or birth register. Take for instance a family of three generations, the elder person named as William may be called William or another derivative name. Then along comes his son who he proudly names William but within the household he might have been called Willie or Bill. He grows up and has a son who he proudly names William. The family when calling them may use another derivative name or at worse a nickname. In one Cufley family we have William, Willie and George. George was baptised William George but after he reached adult hood he was referred to on the records as George William.

The other problem with the census records is the enumerator misunderstanding the accent and their own ability to spell, so we get variants of the surname. This why some of our CUFLEY families have ancestors using the CUFFLEY spelling and vice versa. Finally, some people may have lied to the census officials and they become lost to us in the records. My maternal Great-Great-grandfather is one of these people and his age varied by up to 10 years, his birthplace varied from Kent to London and his forename changed from Francis to Frank (understandable), William and a combination of Francis and John. Perhaps we will never find his birth place.

As a way to illustrate the progress in finding the family I have produced a series of maps for each of the Census years showing the distribution of the family in England and Wales. There are also a series of distribution maps for the GRO indexes for the years 1837 to 1911 for each event.