Where was Fanny Harmsworth in 1881 and 1891?

QMy great grandparents were William Harmsworth and Elizabeth Smith. Their children – according to census returns – were Sarah, John, Annie, Martha, Henry, Clara and William. In 1911, Martha was a visitor in a house in London along with Fanny Harmsworth, a cook. I found an 1873 birth record for Fanny – she was a daughter of William and Elizabeth, but why was she not with them in earlier censuses?

AMy usual method of identifying a couple’s children is to find their marriage, then (as you have done) to look at subsequent census records to see which children are named and verify those by searching the General Register Office (GRO) birth index ( https://www.ggro.ggov.uk/ gro), at the same time noting records of any children who may have been born and died between censuses. Unfortunately, there is more than one Harmsworth–Smith marriage around this time in the Kingsclere District (which covers Wolverton) and the neighbouring Basingstoke District, which makes that approach more difficult.

Finding those away from family in census records can be tricky, especially if they are working for, or visiting, someone who may have filled in the census information and not known their correct details. So searching on partial information or using wildcards may often produce a result when a search on all of the ‘proper’ information fails.

By searching the 1881 census for any girl named Fanny who was born in about 1873 in Hampshire, I found an entry (pictured) for Fanny Armsworth, aged seven, born in Kingsclere and living in Baughurst with her widowed grandmother Amy Smith.

In 1891, specifying a birthplace b of Wolverton, I found fo Fanny Holmsworth, age a 17, working as a general g domestic servant in the household of Ezekiel Holbrook at Southend Farm in Hampshire, only a few miles east of Wolverton.