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More on the 1841 Census

So then ... let's take a look at the 1841 Census.

If you ever manage to get hold of a copy of a microfilm or a photocopy, what you will find after the introduction pages is a huge table. But first I would like to deal with the background and introduction pages because they tell you a great deal.

In 1836 the civil registration areas were divided into eleven divisions, with London being number 1.

as you can see these divisions were very large, so what happened was that these Divisions  or Registration Districts, became divided into sub-districts which in turn were divided into enumeration districts.

To complete matters there were many historical and civil boundaries which needed to be taken into account and recorded, so as well as enumeration district, other encompassing boundaries such as County, Parliamentary Division, Hundred, Wapentake, Parish, township, village, hamlets and extra-parochial (Soke or Liberty) places.

is the key to the sharing of information. In its simplest form it involves the writing down of records or information on paper. Now as we all use the WWW more and more, we find an outstanding medium for communication, so when you find something new which you think should be shared with the world ... send me an e-mail.

Noting which of these headings appear on the census can help you geographically locate where the census was taken.

Census Enumerator Book  (CEB) 1841

Although each householder was given a schedule to complete, these have not survived. However the job of the enumerator was to collect the schedules and transcribe them into a book. So now we know why they are called CEBs!

The CEBs were books of tables or 'schedules' which contained the following information.

1. The place number

2. Was the house inhabited or uninhabited

3. Names of the people in the house

4. Age and gender

5. Profession, trade, employment or of independent means

6. Born in the county, yes or no

7. If not born in the County, indicate Scotland, Ireland or Foreign parts

As you can see, there is no mention of who was the head of the household, nor the relationship between the occupants, so you get the bare minimum from the 1841 census, a name, an age, a gender and a place.

If like me, your research lays in a country village, you probably will not even get a street name, just the number in the schedule. The good news is that public houses, hotels and 'gentry folk' tended to have their abode name recorded.

In the next section we will work through a transcribed section of an 1841 census.

More on British censuses