Why Did My Ancestor Lie (Quick tip: 4)?

On censuses, many young Victorian girls pretended that they had already reached the age of 15 in order to have a better chance of obtaining work as domestic servants and to command better wages when they did so.

Sidney Paget, the Boscombe Valley Mystery, Illustration of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1892. Via Wikimedia Commons.

For Social History and Women’s History Books https://www.naomisymes.com/