Have you ever not found a person or family in a census? No matter how hard you search, sometimes a family simply is not recorded. It could be that the census simply doesn't survive, and there are known issues with several census years. It could also be that a name has been transcribed incorrectly in the indexes. But sometimes it could be that they simply are not there. Men could be working away from home, in the military, or away at sea.
Today we found in the 1861 census at Astley in Lancashire a "family consisting of 3 persons gone off in boat"! It would have been helpful to future genealogists if neighbours or the census enumerator had named the family . . . .
