Census returns used to be regarded as the second port-of-call after General Registration records. Now, with them all online from 1841 to 1901, they can often represent the first and easiest way of tracing a family tree back through the 19th century.
From 1851 to 1901, census returns provide ancestors’ names, relationships to others in the same household, ages and places of birth. With good fortune, you may be able to find your grandparent or great-grandparent with their parents in the 1901 census, then seek the same family in the preceding censuses. At that point (and with good fortune still attending), you will find the names of your forbears who were born in the early 19th or even late 18th centuries, whose baptisms can be sought in parish registers.
Do not attempt to perform these genealogical gymnastics using censuses in isolation. To be sure you have traced the right line, you absolutely must use General Registration records as well. Both categories of records complement each other to help you build up incredibly detailed pictures of your ancestors’ lives. Used together, they can enable you trace a fully proven family tree back to the early 19th century.
THE RECORDS
Each enumeration book (see here) starts with a brief description of the area covered, usually street by street, and also always includes details of the parish, town or borough. Censuses provide a splendid snap-shot of your family on a specific evening in the past showing your ancestors in the context of their family, extended family and neighbourhood. But do remember that the records are just that. If someone was away from the household, even for just that one night, they were supposed to be enumerated where they actually were, not where they normally lived.
THE STORY OF CENSUSES
IN ENGLAND, various population counts have taken place since the Domesday survey of 1086, but thereafter only on a local basis, such as the censuses for parts of the City of London for 1638 and 1695, held at the Corporation of London Record Office. The first national census taken in England, Scotland and Wales was in 1801. It was made in response to the threat of invasion by Napoleon and was designed mainly to ascertain how many men were available for conscription into the army. A debate had also been raging on and off for half a century as to whether the population was declining or, on the other hand, whether it could rise to an unsustainable level. The results showed a population of 8,893,000 in England and Wales. In 1811, largely because of more efficient enumeration, the number was much greater – 10,164,000 in England and Wales – triggering a genuine panic of a population explosion which would rapidly overwhelm the country.
Censuses have been taken every decade since then, except for 1941, when everyone was busy with the all-too-real threat of invasion from Germany. However, until 1841, in almost every instance, they remained mere head counts, although in some 750 happy cases enumerators chose to write down the names and sometimes even occupations (see here). From 1841 onwards, when the Registrar General was placed in charge of the system, Britain has had proper censuses listing everyone together by address, with ages and occupations. Because of secrecy legislation, they are not available for public searching for 100 years, so the most recent records available now are those of the 1901 census.
COMPILING CENSUSES
To compile censuses, the General Registration sub-districts were divided into enumeration districts, which were basically the areas that a single enumerator could cover in foot on an evening. Just as now, forms were distributed in advance of census night, to be completed by each household on the appointed evening or, if everyone in the household was illiterate, by the enumerator. The enumerators copied the resulting information into enumeration books and sent them to the Registrar General for statistical analysis. This was done by clerks with blue pencils, ticking or crossing off entries as they were counted, something which newcomers to census returns sometimes find confusing. Equally, the clerks sometimes wrote general descriptions against occupations – but once you know this, the clerks’ notes are easy to spot and ignore.
The original householders’ forms were destroyed but, more by luck than judgement, almost all the books were kept, but scarcely very well – the returns for 1841 and 1861 were found in the roof of the Houses of Parliament, and sections of the former, particularly for parts of Kent, Essex and London (Paddington, Kensington, Golden Lane and Whitecross), have never been located. They were transferred to the Public Record Office by 1912 and it was not until much later that their immense value for family history was realised. The microfilmed copies of the books are what we use now for census searching and formed the basis for the increasing number of census indexes.
Detail from The Census at Bethlehem by Brueghel (1525–69).
1821 CENSUS
A few returns include more than mere head-counts (see here). Shropshire Record Office also has partial returns for Shrewsbury, including names of occupiers listed street by street.
Hendon’s quite detailed censuses for 1801–21 are at Barnet Borough archives and on CD The Parish of Hendon, 1801, 1811&1821 from www.archivecdbooks.org. The 1821 Hackney returns were found in a cupboard in St John’s church, Hackney and have been published by the East of London FHS as Parish Returns Series no. 2 part 1, Hackney 1821. The returns list heads of households only, even if several households were in one house.
1821 CENSUS EXAMPLES
THREE CONSECUTIVE ENTRIES from the Hackney 1821 index show:
‘Rossers, James, Jolly Butchers Yard, [Stoke] Newington, 2 males, 2 females, total 4/4’
[meaning four people in Rosser’s household, and another three families in the same building, p. 173]
‘Rossomond, Joseph, Aldermans Walk, tailor, 5 males, 2 females, total 7’ [p. 30]
‘Rothschild, Mr [Nathan Mayer], Stamford Hill, gent, 3 males, 7 females, total 10’ [p. 162]
1831 CENSUS
The 1831 returns for Hackney survive as well and have been indexed in J. Chaudhuri’s Hackney Street Directory 1831 (East of London FHS, 2001), listing head of household by name, with their occupation and the occupations but not names of the other inhabitants. Originals for both are in the Hackney Borough Archives. For details of other surviving early censuses, see here. An enumerator’s notebook survives for Saxmundham, Suffolk, including names of people being counted.
1841 CENSUS
Most of these returns survive. They give:
Address. This may be precise, or simply a street name or even just the name of the village, with each house numbered sequentially as the enumerator walked around.
Name of each person in the household. Middle names or initials were not to be recorded.