Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors by Sue Wilkes

Author:Sue Wilkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783035649
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2013-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

Census Returns

The enumerators’ summary books were bound into volumes (‘pieces’). Because each summary book had numbered pages, each page number would recur, so to make it easier to identify each record, the front of each page was stamped with a ‘folio number’. So for 1841–1901, each page of the book is defined by a unique reference number comprising four parts. The first part is the original Home Office or Registrar General series code, followed by a ‘piece number’, folio number and page number (each folio number relates to two pages).

For example, the 1851 census return for Bolton Registration District enumeration district number 1e, Bolton Western Sub-Registration District, has a TNA reference number: HO 107/2211, folio 162, p. 20. This refers to Home Office series 107, piece 2211, folio 162, p. 20.

For the 1911 census, the household schedules were preserved as well as the summary books, and colour images of schedules are available online. Each schedule was completed and signed by the householder. The 1911 census schedules were extremely detailed. For the first time, married women were asked how many children were born alive in their current marriage, how many had died and how many were still alive.

The 1911 census schedules and summary books are linked by a unique reference number comprising three parts: Registration District Number (RD), Registration Sub-District Number (RS) and Enumeration District Number (ED). Each summary book correlates to its own set of schedules.

A detailed discussion of the variations in the types of data gathered by each census is beyond the scope of this book: see Peter Christian and David Annal, Census: The Expert Guide (TNA, 2008), which includes case studies and the 1911 census, and Edward Higgs, Making Sense of the Census Revisited: Census Records for England and Wales 1801–1901 (Institute of Historical Research/TNA, 2005).

The census returns for England and Wales are kept by TNA; they can be viewed on microfilm at Kew and at local archives and reference libraries. LRO holds copies of censuses for Lancashire for 1841–1901. Local record offices and reference libraries may only keep censuses for their particular area, but many offer free access to one of the subscription services.

Census returns for 1841–1911 have been digitized, transcribed and indexed and made available online (see Section E). Lancashire County Libraries offers free access to the Ancestry website via its library computers. Census returns are also available at FamilySearch (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) centres (see Section C).

Some free census returns for Lancashire have been transcribed by volunteers and put online (see Section D). The Lancashire Family History and Heraldry Society has published some 1851 transcripts and indexes for the North Lancashire and the Fylde areas. Indexes and/or transcripts for several Lancashire towns have been printed in book form, fiche or CD-ROM by family history or record societies.

The Society of Genealogists’ Library has some surname indexes, place-name indexes and returns for Lancashire censuses. It also has some copies of censuses prior to 1841 and census ‘substitutes’ such as lay subsidy rolls (see the Society’s online library catalogue).

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