Question:

Genealogy..What does the term 'pauper' actually mean?

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When it's recorded on a census?

It's an 1871 census and an ancestor is living in a house that he has lived in for decades. Previously he is recorded as the 'head' and Ag Lab. Then in the 1871 Census the daughter is recorded as 'head' and him pauper.

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  1. For the US pauper is one that the courts have deemed needing assistance because they have no assets or income coming in.

    Not sure for UK but she might be "head" and him "pauper" but they both might be paupers, living in the same house/apartment


  2. Pauper.

    Poverty is deprivation, the denial of access to those things which make a life of dignity possible, including not only food, shelter and safe drinking water, but also such as 'intangibles' as the opportunity to learn, to engage in meaningful employment or to enjoy the respect of one's fellow ...

  3. a pauper was someone who had little or no money

    if they died and were buried in a paupers grave the state buried them cheaply in a plain grave

    paupers often ended up in the workhouse where they worked long hours to pay for their keep

  4. no income and no money, having to be looked after by his daughter

  5. the modern equivalent of being bankrupt!

  6. in the 17 or 1800's a tax came out which everyone, except paupers, were legally bound to pay.  If you were a 'pauper' (someone without means and very poor), you were exempt.  Many people registered themselves as paupers.

  7. Literally, it's the Latin for 'poor'.  In Victorian England it meant a destitute person receiving parish assistance or actually in the workhouse. In the case of your ancestor, the daughter probably received a very small amount of money to care for him, because it was cheaper that way than maintaining him in the workhouse.

    Good old days???

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