The Long Niece

In the 1881 census Susan M Shergold is age 18, unmarried, Niece in the household of Henry Long and Elizabeth Long.  Starting with the easiest options, we can consider the possible sibling relationships that would connect Susan to her Uncle Henry and Aunt Elizabeth:

	Susan's father - Mr Shergold?	Susan's mother - Mrs or Miss?
Susan's Uncle Henry Long	Were Susan's father and Uncle Henry brothers?	Were Susan's mother and Uncle Henry siblings with her maiden name Long?
Susan's Aunt Elizabeth Long	Were Susan's father and Aunt Elizabeth siblings, with her maiden name Shergold?	Were Susan's mother and Aunt Elizabeth sisters with the same maiden name?

In the attempt to draw their family tree, we can start by assuming that Susan has the surname with which she was born and see if she is with her parents in the previous census.  Indeed, a 7 year old with the same name and same place of birth is found in the 1871 census as Daughter to Emanuel Shergold, living in Shrewton, Wiltshire, with his wife Jane Shergold and three other children, too.
 
The wonderful FreeBMD website gives the following information from marriage registrations, after some consideration of variant first names: 

• (Susan's uncle) Harry Long and Elizabeth Rowe (oh - not Shergold) married in 1873.
• (Susan's father) Emmanuel Shergold and Jane Goddard (hmm - not Long, or Rowe) married in 1869 (less than 2 years before the census with Daughter Susan age 7).
  

The useful GRO Online index shows that the birth of Susan Mary Shergold in 1864 was registered with the mother's maiden name of Giddings.  Back in FreeBMD we can find that Emmanuel Shergold and Dinah Giddings married in 1855 and Dinah Shergold died in 1866, when her daughter Susan was 2 years old.  So we now know that in the 1871 census Susan is with her stepmother Jane but we are no closer to the uncle and aunt of the 1881 census, either through Susan's mother or stepmother.

Back to Susan's 1881 census household: consider that when Elizabeth married Harry Long, she brought him a Stepson William J Rowe.  If Elizabeth was married when William was born, and Rowe was her husband's surname, then we need to look further for her maiden name.  There was no marriage record for Rowe but with some more persistence:

• George Roe and Elizabeth Shergold (ah ha - Shergold) married in 1855.

So it seems that in 1881 Susan was living with her father's sister, Aunt Elizabeth, lately Long, formerly Rowe or Roe and elsewhere Row, née Shergold.  Congratulations if you got the the end of this niece piece with me!