FAMILY HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS

The Census

Introduction

The first national census of England & Wales was carried out in 1801 and further enumerations were carried out in 1811, 1821 and 1831. There was no requirement to record names and so most of these returns are genealogically useless. In a few areas, however, names were recorded and records have survived. See Reading list below for areas covered. Names were first required in 1841 and the first recognisably "modern" census was taken in 1851. The process has continued every 10 years with the exception of 1941 when wartime conditions prevailed. A 100 year closure rule applies to viewing the records.

The census returns are of immeasurable value to the family historian since they show families as households and provide details of ages, relationships and birthplaces. These details can be helpful in locating events within civil registration and are invaluable as a springboard back into the period before 1837 when research will depend upon the use of parish registers.

How the Census was Taken

The basis for taking the census was the system of Registration Districts which had been introduced  for civil registration of births, marriages and deaths (itself based on the Poor Law Union boundaries established in 1832). Each registration sub-district was divided into a number of Enumeration Districts and an Enumerator appointed to collect information in each. The Enumerator travelled around his appointed district distributing schedules to each household to be completed with the details of all people present in the household on census night. Shortly after census night, he would return to collect the forms. His next job was to complete an enumeration book by transcribing the details from each schedule in turn. He would also complete some summary information and describe the district and its boundaries. He then forwarded his enumeration book(s), together with the schedules, to the Registrar who in turn sent them to the Registrar General. The schedules were at some stage discarded and no longer survive so we are dependent upon the details as transcribed by the Enumerator. Following analysis of the returns and publication of statistical reports, the enumeration books were put into storage and are held under a 100 year closure rule.

Enumeration District Details

Each enumerator was required to include a description of the area for which he was responsible in a section at the front of his enumeration book. This should describe the boundary of the area, usually by reference to the boundary streets in a city but possibly in less precise terms for a village or small town. He will also list the streets and occasionally institutions within the enumeration district. Enumerators might start on a main road but then divert to enumerate small side streets, courts or tenements before returning to enumerate further households on the original road. Streets may therefore be enumerated in small stretches scattered throughout the district return. Boundaries were frequently defined down the middle of a street so, for example, odd house numbers and even house numbers may be found in two different enumeration districts. Similarly a long road might both form a boundary between districts and also pass through several districts. You may have to search ten or more districts in the case of a major highway.

Separate (and slightly different format) books were completed by those responsible for large institutions such as hospitals, army barracks or workhouses. There are separate returns for those on board naval and merchant vessels though the rules for enumeration of those on board ships changed from census to census.

The Data in the Enumeration Books for 1841

The 1841 census returns are considerably different (and less informative) than those for later years. They also contain some pitfalls for the unwary. They are, however, if used with caution, still highly valuable.

The information in the 1841 enumeration books consists of:

§         Place - in a city this is likely to be a street (but very unlikely to include a house number), in villages may be only the village name but farms may be named, as may public houses.

§         Names - "middle" names or initials will usually not be recorded.

§         Age - These are stated in whole years for children up to 15, but rounded down to nearest 5 years for those aged over 15 e. g. a person aged 47 would be entered as 45.

§         Sex - males and females are differentiated by placing the ages in separate columns.

§         Employment - This will usually be quite a short description e. g. "Farmer", "Male Servant", Ag(ricultural) Lab(ourer)". Several common abbreviations are used including MS - Male Servant, FS - Female Servant, FWK - Framework Knitter and J - Journeyman.

§         Where born - there is one column "whether born in the county" in which will be entered "Y" or "N", and a second column for persons born outside England & Wales which may contain "S" for Scotland, "I" for Ireland or "F" for Foreign Parts.

Caveats

The peculiar way in which ages are to be recorded reflects the practice in earlier (anonymous) censuses but 1841 was the last year in which ages were recorded in this way. You will, however, occasionally find precise ages stated for adults. These "precise" ages may, however, not be trustworthy as is discussed below. You should also note that relationships are not stated and care must be taken in inferring them from ages and the order in which names are listed. Although the first name will usually be the head of the household, do not infer that the similarly-aged woman who appears next is his wife. She may be his sister or more distant relation.

Data in the Enumeration Books for 1851 Onwards

The data in these later books is considerably more helpful than for 1841. It consists of:

§         Schedule Number - the number of the original (and now lost) schedule.

§         Name of Street etc. - may contain house numbers. Villages will often not have street names.

§         Name - will generally, but not always, contain middle names or at least initials.

§         Relation to Head of Family - this may require care in interpretation

§         Condition - Married, Unmarried or Widowed

§         Age - now in exact years. Infants under one year often given in months, weeks and days.

§         Sex - separate age columns as above.

§         Occupation - rather more precise. Acreage and number of men and boys employed given for farmers.

§         Where born - will usually be the county and parish. If outside England & Wales will usually be the country only.

§         Whether blind, deaf or dumb - the disability should be specified. Expanded from 1871 to include whether imbecile or lunatic (notes for the enumerator explain the difference!).

§         Number of rooms occupied - from 1891 only, the number of rooms if fewer than five.

§         Whether employer, employed or neither - from 1891 only, three columns, one to be marked

Houses and Households

The enumerator was required to indicate the boundaries between separate houses and separate households sharing a common building. In 1851, uniquely, the division between separate houses was indicated by a line across the first four columns of the page and between separate families in the same house (eg occupying rooms in a shared house) by a line across part of the second column and across the third and fourth columns. In other years, houses are separated by two oblique strokes and households by a single oblique stroke at the right hand side of the "Houses" column.

Where to Find the Census returns

The original books are deposited at the PRO, Kew. They are only available to the public by advance request and where the filmed copy is illegible.

The enumeration books have been filmed and can be seen on microfilm or microfiche at a variety of places:

§         Family Records Centre, London - all years (except 1901) for all England, Wales & Channel Is.

§         Public Record Office, Kew - 1901 returns for all England, Wales & Channel Is.

§         County Record Offices - likely to have all returns for the county

§         Libraries/Local Studies - probably have returns for their immediate area of interest

§         Family History Societies - possibly have some returns for their area of interest.

§         LDS Family History Centres - can order copies of films for any area.

§         The 1901 census returns are on the internet at www.census.pro.gov.uk.

The Gibson Guide "Census Returns 1841-1891 on Microfilm" provides a good listing of local holdings. You may also purchase filmed copies from the PRO. A recent development is the publication of scanned images of census enumeration books on CDROM. These are currently available for London but returns for Lancashire & Yorkshire are planned for release in early 2002.

Numbering System

The census returns are numbered by the PRO in distinct series for each census year. Those for 1841 and 1851 were deposited by the Home Office and are filed in Class HO107. Later ones were deposited by the Registrar General and are filed in Class RG9 (1861), RG10 (1871), RG11 (1881), RG12 (1891) and RG13 (1901). Within each class, collections of books are numbered with a "Piece" reference up to 4 digits long e. g. HO107/2345, RG11/35. How many books make up a piece may differ from census year to census year.

Each enumeration book's pages are numbered in sequence but since there may be several books in each piece, a page number may be repeated several times and so it is difficult to refer to an individual page with any precision. To overcome this problem, a system called "folio numbering" is used. The several books making up the piece were stitched along the spine to make one large book. A sequence of numbers, starting at 1 was then stamped onto the top right hand corner of the front of each page. This is called the "folio number" and applies to the numbered page and its un-numbered reverse. Since the pieces are filmed page-by-page, folio numbers will appear on alternate images and refer to the numbered image and the one which immediately follows. Folio numbers provide a unique reference to locate an entry within a given piece.

Finding Aids

The immediate problem we face is "which piece do we need to search to find a specific place?". The PRO have produced indexes listing townships and villages and indicating the piece number(s) required. For larger towns and cities the problem is that there may be a large number of pieces involved. For these places, street indexes have been compiled. These indexes are available at the FRC but you may find copies or locally produced indexes in other archives which have census films.

Name and street indexes have been produced for many areas, usually by members of family history societies. These may only list surnames (with the folio numbers on which they appear) or may be full transcripts of the returns or anything in-between. There is a fully indexed transcript to the 1881 census for the whole of mainland Britain available on fiche and CDROM. For other years, national coverage is patchy with 1851 being the year for which the largest number of returns have been indexed. Indexes will mostly be published in booklet form covering relatively small areas though a few counties have been indexed fully and the resulting databases are searchable for a fee. The returns for 1851 for Norfolk, Devon and Warwickshire have been published on CDROM by the LDS Church.

Finding People in the Census

If you are fortunate, the census returns you wish to search will be indexed and this will lead you directly to the census entry. Otherwise, you will need to find an address to search. In a village, a blanket search through the returns of a few hundred households will not take long but if the family was living in a city, even if the district is known, such a search would be very much a last resort.

Possible sources of addresses include:

§         Family documents, letters, etc.

§         Birth, marriage and death certificates

§         Wills and administrations

§         Trade Directories, particularly those published in census year or the year after.

§         Newspaper birth, marriage and death announcements

§         Cemetery grave books.

You may find it useful to use a contemporary map, for example the Alan Godfrey reprints of Ordnance Survey maps, as a means of "following the enumerator" and placing the census address into its local context. Note that the boundary between enumeration districts will often be down the centre of a street which may therefore appear in two enumeration districts. Long streets may be divided between several enumeration districts. Be certain not to miss any portion, particularly where no house numbers are stated in the returns. Some larger streets may form the boundaries between Registrars' Districts and so may appear on two or more piece numbers.

Census Problems and Pitfalls

Census data cannot be accepted at face value. The process of collecting, recording and transcribing the information provided many opportunities for error and omission and care must be taken to try to corroborate any information found. Areas in which problems may arise include:

§         The person was not enumerated or their schedule was lost. This probably applies to a small but significant number of individuals and families.

§         Transcription errors may have distorted the name or other data. This is particularly troublesome when using an index since the person sought may appear to be missing.

§         The books for a given area may have been damaged or lost. These gaps will usually be known to the local family history society or archive. There are several such areas in and around Manchester for 1851.

§         A street you are looking for may have changed name between the date of the source in which the street name was found and the census date. House numbers may also change.

§         If the householder was illiterate the enumerator or a friend will have written down his spoken answers. Personal and place names may be spelled phonetically and not as expected, particularly if remote from the census place.

§         Middle names may be omitted (they were excluded from the 1841 census but occasionally appear) or only an initial given. "Pet" names may also be used, Sally for Sarah, Jack for John etc.

§         Ages are particularly unreliable. People may deliberately have given an incorrect age or may not have known their age. This is evidenced by individuals who age less then 10 years between successive censuses and by the tendency for ages of 40, 50, 60 etc. to appear more frequently than might be expected.

§         Relationships must be treated with care. "Cousin" may mean nephew or other kin. If a married couple are living with parents, occasionally their children are described as son & daughter when they should be grandson & granddaughter (i.e. relationship to head). Son/Daughter-in-law may mean stepson/daughter.

§         Birthplaces may be incorrect. A person may not know where he was born, only the place of which they had the earliest memories. Concern about "removal" under the Poor Law may have led people to say they were born in the town or village where they were living.

§         Some very young infants may have been omitted.

§         Statisticians' pencil marks may obscure all or part of an entry. They may also look like ticks in the "blind, deaf or dumb" column suggesting infirmities which did not exist.

Why the Census is Useful

The census returns show us individuals in their family context and so immediately may identify parents and siblings. There is, however, other useful information which can be derived:

§         The age and birthplace can assist in locating a birth. This is particularly useful if the person was born before civil registration and parish registers have to be searched.

§         The wider family may include in-laws and so suggest a wife's maiden name. It may also include a widowed parent or grandparent and so as well as confirming a relationship will provide an upper time limit when searching for the death of the deceased partner.

§         Study of the occupations of neighbouring families will enable you to gain some idea of the socio-economic position of your family. The number (if any) and nature of servants employed may also indicate relative prosperity.

§         The presence of step-children will indicate a wife's previous marriage but note that because relationships are to the head of household, there will be no indication in this way of a husband's earlier marriages.

§         The birthplaces of children will provide an indication of former residences and approximate dates. This can be helpful when a child is 10 or 20 years old as it suggests where to look in earlier censuses.

Some General Tips

The following suggestions may help you get the most out of the census:

§         Note the piece and folio number in case you wish to return for another search. Keep note of areas searched.

§          If you find your family in a census transcript, check the original, some of the details may have been mis-transcribed.

§         Take a look at other families living nearby and note any with the same surname (unless it is very common). Children, when married, would often live close to their parents.

§         Try to find your person in two or more successive censuses. Details of name, age and birthplace may differ.

§         People living in cities would usually rent their house. They may move at least once between census years. They will, however, frequently not move far.

§         Note that some occupational descriptions can be misleading. "Independent Means" does not necessarily mean substantial assets. It may mean "reliant on children's charity". Scholar implies a child is receiving some form of education but this may not necessarily mean full-time schooling.

References

§         A Clearer Sense of the Census, Edward Higgs, HMSO (an update of his earlier Making Sense of the Census and the best book on census history and records)

§         Making Use of the Census, Susan Lumas, PRO (A good practical guide to using the records)

§         Census Returns 1841-91 on Microfilm - A Guide to Local Holdings, Jeremy Gibson, FFHS

§         Local Census Listings 1522-1930, Jeremy Gibson, FFHS (Location of 1801-1831 nominal returns as well as many other local lists of people)

§         Censuses 1841-1891, Eve McLaughlin (short introductory booklet)

[John Marsden - 5 January 2002]