ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates the importance of attending to the effects of perceived similarities and differences between past and present lives through which people negotiate feelings of connection or distance, drawing upon and reflecting their own beliefs, values and assumptions. The desire to see their own, often heteronormative, family lives reflected in the lives of past residents also influenced responses to the census records. Some participants connected to past residents by considering them to be like an extended family. A further way in which participants acknowledged the differences between their life in their home and those of past residents was to consider past social discrepancies within homes. Indeed, the discussion of differences beyond observations that participants might have had little in common with past residents as individuals tended to focus on the more generic and broader observations related to how life was lived in the past.
