1841 Update - Using the First British Nominal Census

by Sherry Irvine, CG, FSA Scot

There has been a spike in activity within the UK data at Ancestry, and the reason is the arrival of 1841 census data. The excitement is understandable; the set of census returns for England and Wales, 1841 to 1901, is complete. Genealogists should be excited for other reasons too, and I will tell you more about why in this article.

Why 1841 Is Important
In England, Wales, the Isle of Man, Channel Islands, and Scotland, a nominal census was enumerated in 1841. This was not the first census of mainland Britain and the surrounding small islands, but it was the first that directed enumerators to list every name and record personal details.

It was a remarkable undertaking for its day. The census of 1841 differed in three ways from its predecessors (1801 through 1831):

• It was taken all at once in the shortest possible time.
• An account had to be made of each and every individual.
• The full returns, rather than statistical summaries, were sent to the General Register Office for analysis.

The Familiar Difficulties
Most descriptions in books and articles include comments on the shortcomings of the census information. For each person enumerated you see full name, occupation, approximate age, and vague birthplace details, in addition to the information about location. There is no indication of relationships among people in a household which, combined with the vague ages and birthplaces, makes it difficult to pick out individuals, particularly when a surname is common.

Unreadable pages can be another problem because the census was written in pencil. Many of us have struggled to read faint microfilm images. The least fortunate among us find nothing at all as chunks of the 1841 census are missing.

Overcoming the Problems
The first comments I heard about the Ancestry version of the 1841 census for the UK were about the image quality. Many formerly unreadable sections have been enhanced and the background information (found on the database search pages for England, Wales, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, and Scotland) lists the sections that have been enhanced.

Bonuses of Online Resources
The England and Wales returns for 1841 have an every-name index, and the images of the enumeration registers are available for viewing. The Scotland returns are indexed, and a full transcript is available. From the main UK census page, it is possible to search at one time across all of mainland Britain, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man. Alternatively you can search England, Wales, Scotland, Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man one at a time.

I use the county-level search to look for people living close to the borders between England and Scotland, and England and Wales. With a map handy I can choose the counties that should be searched. Scots connections, for example, are among my Westmorland ancestors. I have searched Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Dumfries, and Roxburghshire for them. Being able to do this in one place, going back and forth between adjacent counties, is an advantage.

Other bonuses are the features of the search tool. In Scotland some surnames are very common--compared to other locations where the number of surnames within the population is low--and it is a help to be able to search by given name only. I use both the ranked search and the exact search because they behave differently. By the way, exact search may be a slightly misleading term; remember your search can be made somewhat less precise through the use of wild card symbols. It really helps to read the instructions, found in the Ancestry.co.uk Help Center.

Conclusion-It Was a Good Year
As far as genealogists are concerned, the timing of this enumeration was good. 1841 is four years after the start of civil registration records (1 July 1837), nine years after the first reform bill began to expand those records in lists of voters, and it was a period when trade and local directories are appearing in print in ever increasing numbers. In other words, there are several resources that can be checked, one against the other, before research moves beyond the informative resources of the 1800s. Make the most of the 1841 census.

About the Author
Sherry Irvine, CG, FSA Scot, is an author, teacher, and lecturer specializing in English, Scottish, and Irish family history. She is the author of Your English Ancestry (2d ed., 1998) and Researching Scottish Ancestry (2003), and she is a contributor to several publications. Since 1996, she has been a study-tour leader, course coordinator, and instructor for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University. Recently she served a two- year term as president of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

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Description:

The 1841 Census for England was taken on the night of 30 March 1841. The following information was requested:

• Name of street, place, road, etc.
  
• House number or name
  
• Name of each person that had spent the night in that household
  
• Relationship of person enumerated to the head of the family
  
• Person's marital status
  
• Age at last birthday (sex is indicated by which column the age is recorded in)
  
• Person's rank, profession, or occupation
  
• Person's place of birth (if outside of England or Wales, only the country may be given)
  
• Whether blind, deaf, or idiot

Enumeration forms were distributed to all households a couple of days before census night and the complete forms were collected the next day. All responses were to reflect the individual's status as of 30 March 1841 for all individuals who had spent the night in the house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of the details from the individual forms were later sorted and copied into enumerators' books, which are the records we can view images of today. The original householders schedules from 1841 to 1901 were destroyed.

The clerks who compiled and reviewed the census data made a variety of marks on the returns. Unfortunately, many of these tally marks were written over personal information and some fields, such as ages, can be difficult to read as a result. More useful marks include a single slash between households within a building and a double slash separating households in separate buildings.

Extended Description:

How the census forms are organized:

Census returns were collected according to registration district. These returns were divided into sub-districts and assigned consecutive piece numbers for reference purposes. The piece numbers begin in London with number one and work roughly south to north, followed by the Welsh districts and then the Isle of Man and Channel Islands. You will find the piece number on a paper strip at the bottom of every image, following the PRO class number. There may be hundreds of pieces within a county.

In addition to the piece number, each page of the returns includes a folio number and/or a page number. The folio number was stamped onto every other page before microfilming and is located in the upper right hand corner of the image. Folio numbering usually starts over at the beginning of each piece. The page number is part of the printed form and is found on every page in the upper right hand corner. The page numbers start over at the beginning of every enumeration district. A full reference number for a record in the 1841 census includes the PRO class number (HO 107), the piece number, the folio number, and the page number. Keep in mind that you may have to look at several enumeration districts to find the page you want within a given folio since the page numbers start over with every ED.

Known problems with the 1841 Census:

• The following parishes and hamlets are missing from these piece numbers. Some of these parishes and hamlets represent the entirety of the piece, while others are just portions of a piece.

  Piece	County	Parishes and Hamlets
  1762	Cambridgeshire and Suffolk	Ashley-cum-Silverley Burwell Exning Landwade Newmarket Reach Snailwell St Mary Swaffham Prior
  1763	Cambridgeshire and Suffolk	Dalham Dunstall-Green Gazeley Higham Green Kennett Lidgate Moulton Ousden Southwell Park
  1785	Essex	Aythorp-Roothing Bardfield-Saling Barnston Broxted Chickney Easton Lodge Felstead Great Bardfield Great Canfield Great Dunmow Great Easton Hatfield-Broad-Oak or Hatfield Regis High Easter High Roothing Leaden-Roothing Lindsell Little Bardfield Little Canfield Little Easton Little Dunmow Margaret Roothing Morrell-Roothing Stebbing Takeley Thaxted Tilty White Roothing
  1852	Dorset	Bagbere Bellchalwell Child Okeford Fifehead-Neville Hammoon Haselbury-Bryan Hinton St Mary Ibberton Manston Newton Okeford-Fitzpaine Shillingstone or Shilling-Okeford Stoke-Wake Sturminster-Newton-Castle Woolland

• In addition, the census returns of the following localities have been damaged by water during storage. Most of the damaged pieces are in the area of Manchester.

  Piece	County	Parishes and Hamlets
  2332	Yorkshire	Broadroyd Head Carlton Carr Green Cudworth with High & Low Cudworth Darton Darton Lane Head Darton with Blacker Mapplewell Notton Roystone Staincross & Swallow Hill Woolley
  2219	Lancashire	Manchester Ardwick Birth in Rusholme Burnage Chorlton-dum-Hardy Didsbury Gorton Levenshulme Openshaw Rusholme Withington
  2220	Lancashire	Manchester Ardwick Chorlton-upon-Medlock
  2221	Lancashire	Manchester Moss-side Hulme
  2222/1	Lancashire	Eccles Pendleton
  2222/2	Lancashire	Eccles Pendlebury
  2222/3	Lancashire	Manchester Broughton-with Kersall
  2223	Lancashire	Manchester Salford
  2224	Lancashire	Manchester Salfrod
  2225	Lancashire	Manchester
  2226	Lancashire	Manchester
  2227	Lancashire	Manchester
  2228	Lancashire	Manchester
  2229	Lancashire	Manchester
  2230	Lancashire	Manchester
  2231	Lancashire	Manchester Bradford Beswick Newton with Culcheth & Kirkmanshulme
  2232	Lancashire	Manchester Alt Alt-Edge Alt-Hill Ashton-under-Lyne Blackley Cheetham Crumpsall Failsworth Great Heaton Harpurhey Knott Lanes with Lees Knott Lanes & Wood Park Little Heaton Moston Prestwich Taunton
  2233	Lancashire	Ashton-under-Lyne Ashton Town
  2240	Lancashire	Prestwich Oldham (St Mary's, St Peter's, Wernet, and Westwood Wards)

Connecting piece numbers and localities:

To identify which parishes or townships are included in a piece, please use The National Archives online catalogue. Search the catalogue by entering the series code and the piece number, e.g. HO 107/217, in the box in the upper left that says "Type reference here."

Alternatively, you can search the catalogue vice-versa (identify which piece number a particular parish or township is part of) by putting a place name in the "Word or phrase" field and "HO 107" in the "Department or Series code" field.

Some of the above information was taken from "Chapter 6: Census Returns," Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History by Mark D. Herber (Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc, 1998) and Using Census Returns, Pocket Guides to Family History by David Annal (Richmond, Surrey: Public Record Office, 2002).

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Source Information:
Ancestry.co.uk. 1841 England Census [database online]. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2005. Indexed by MyFamily.com, Inc. from microfilmed schedules of the 1841 England Census. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England. The National Archives gives no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or fitness for the purpose of the information provided. Images may be used only for purposes of research, private study or education. Applications for any other use should be made to the National Archives, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU. Infringement of the above condition may result in legal action.