Eldridges in the 1891 census

Olwen Rose Eldridge,
 daughter of Charles Albert Eldridge

A survey of the 1891 census reveals that: 28% of all Eldridges in England and Wales lived in London, 17% in Sussex, 13% in Kent, 10% in Hampshire, 6% in Middlesex, and 3% in Surrey.

That accounts for over three-quarters of the Eldridge population from a total of 3,504 families, and you would assume that many of them shared a limited pool of common ancestors.

Given these percentages, and the obvious trend of migration to London in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is thus more than likely that the Eldridges of Surrey had earlier roots in either Kent - as already suggested, or Sussex, or indeed both.

Pinning down these links with more precision is another matter, though. In 1891, for example, there were 461 Eldridge branches recorded in Kent, any of whom might have a claim to be hiding the missing link to the Surrey line.

It is part of this particular pursuit to see if any particularly strong candidates for that elusive bond emerged from the fog.




Note: Eldridge statistics generated by Ancestry.Com