James Stocking b1901 in the 1911 census

Like so many other family history addicts (I suspect) I have wasted little time in searching for ancestors in the newly-released 1911 census.  My first search - for my grandfather James Stocking, born in London in 1901 - was successful. His birth was just too late for him to appear in the 1901 census, so although I'd found his parents and older siblings in those records, I was keen to see the family in 1911.

James is living with his parents (my great-grandparents) James Aaron Stocking and Susan (nee Hill) and his younger sister Susan, aged 7. Both children are described as born in Camberwell, London and as at school. James' father, James Aaron, is working as a Paper Hanger. The family is living in three rooms at 16 Beechfield Road, Catford, SE London. James senior's handwriting is neat and sloping to the right, and he signs the census schedule legibly.

The extra information on the 1911 census shows that James' parents had been married for 10 years by then, and that they had had two children, both of whom were still alive. In all they had three children, the youngest, Dolly Hannah, was not born until 1913.

Beechfield Rd in Catford was home to several branches of the Stocking and related families for much of the first decades of the 1900s.