USING CENSUS RETURNS

The census was taken at midnight on the following dates.

6 – 7 June 1841 identified by the series and piece numbers    HO107/1- 1465

30 – 31 March 1851 identified by the series and piece numbers HO107/1466 - 2532

7 – 8 April 1861                    RG9

2 – 3 April 1871                    RG10

3 - 4 April 1881                    RG11

5 – 6 April 1891                   RG12

31 Mar – 1 Apr 1901             RG13

2 April 1911                           RG14.

19 June 1921                        RG15

The census returns from 1841 to 1921 have been digitised, indexed by name and are available online.  You can search by name, browse by place, or locate an exact page if you have the full census reference.

It was originally planned that the 1921 census would be taken on the night of 24th April 1921 but the date was postponed until 19 June because of the strike by coal miners, railwaymen and transport workers. The later date could also mean that it would be affected by people taking holidays although the date chosen avoided Wakes Weeks and other industry holidays. Therefore, families may not be where researchers expected them to be.

A census reference consists of codes and numbers for specific bits of each census.

A government department code (HO = Home Office, RG = Registrar General)

A series number

A piece number  A piece contains many pages identified firstly by folio numbers and then page numbers.

A folio number shown on every other page usually bold numbers in the top right-hand corner.

A page number - The location of page numbers differs depending upon the return. Individual dwellings or occupancies are further identified on the page by schedules and some online sources provide the latter as well as the full reference.

For example, a reference of HO107/1830/111/4 in the 1851 census is compiled as follows:

Census returns provide a snapshot of the family on a particular date, but careful scrutiny might show any events that could have taken place in the family structure in the intervening years such as deaths, marriages and remarriages, births, move outs etc. It is important to be aware of the dates on which the census was taken. Used in conjunction with other information, they prove very informative. 

What you see as you search the returns between 1841 and 1901 are the transcribed enumeration books arranged geographically by district. For the 1911 and 1921 censuses, you see the actual household return.

Each census had a purpose. For example, the first census taken on 10 March 1801 during the Napoleonic Wars was intended to provide statistical information to manage the demand for food and find out how many men were of military age.

The 1841 census records the names of everybody resident at the address on census night. Householders were asked to describe the occupations of people at their property and this may have included servants and apprentices; so sometimes you could find ancestors who were servants residing with an employer rather than at home with their own family.

Information in the censuses gradually became more detailed with every decade that passed. Each census contained different information and there is a specific article on the website about this.

The digitisation and indexing of the 1841-1921 censuses makes it relatively straightforward to locate ancestors as you can search by name, age, place of birth and residence; you can also cross-reference with the names of relatives who should be in the same house. However, every now and then a family seems to just disappear and this can be for any number of reasons. So you have to think laterally how you are going to find them. 

Do be aware that the censuses are not totally accurate! Enumerators transferred the information from the household forms into the enumeration books for the 1841 – 1901 returns, and mistakes were made! Enumerators could have mis-interpreted or mis-copied your ancestor’s handwriting. If the householder was illiterate, the return would have been done on the doorstep, so the enumerator  would have recorded what they heard (or thought they heard) or how they thought a name was spelt. Any errors could be compounded even more when the online indexers struggled to read the enumerator’s handwriting so the digital indexes would be inaccurate. The biggest challenge facing researchers is the interpretation of the capital letter at the start of a surname. Say the surname out loud and also think about regional accents and dialects too. Enumerators were usually from the area they were checking but sometimes they were send to other areas of the country. So think for a moment...could an enumerator from London fully understand what a broad Brummie or Yorkshireman was saying on the doorstep?  When you are unable to find your family, try looking at different website indexes as they are all separately transcribed.

It is important to identify your ancestors in as many census returns as you can and then compare the information. Ages and places of birth may vary and if you rely on only one set of census papers, you may be misled in further research as you could be looking in the wrong places or time period. In most cases, however, you should be able to find your ancestors on the census without too much trouble, but where there are gaps, other records will need to be used.

There are many reasons why an ancestor cannot be found on a census. Some people avoided officialdom and others deliberately provided misinformation to avoid resettlement by the authorities. Human error at the time and in the digitisation process also played a part.

Some original census records were damaged, destroyed or lost over the years for many reasons, so various sections of census returns are just not available. There is a complete detailed list of missing census pieces available on the FindmyPast website

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/census-for-england-wales-and-scotland-missing-pieces

Human error is also possible with pages missed during original filming.