1861 Census Online >> 1861 Radnorshire Census

Five in a Row: Census Enumerations of England and Wales
– Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot)

Recently Ancestry made a significant addition to the online British census collection. Most of the 1861 census appeared at one go. Five enumerations are accessible now--1861 to 1901 inclusive. The amount of data is huge, and I would encourage everyone to carefully consider their search techniques.

Tracking One Person
George Basendine (a random choice) was a laborer and lived all his life in the same area of Northamptonshire. It is interesting to see the differences in his census information over the years.

George's surname had three spellings, Bassendine, Bassindine, and Bassendein. He aged by exactly ten years every census, just as he should. His occupation was reported fairly consistently--laborer, agricultural laborer, and stock minder. His place of residence was the village of Werrington from 1871 to 1901, and in that time he resided at two, or perhaps three locations (a street address is given twice). In 1861 he may have been in Werrington but it is hard to tell without a little research. Boxes at the top of the census page are empty but for one; the parish is given as Newborough, and the enumerator mentions nothing else in his description of the section.

Inconsistencies in the way place information was provided point to the value of knowing details about a place, both what it was and what it fell within. This information can be crucial when making distinctions between two or three individuals or families with similar names. Fortunately, there are facts online; e.g., gazetteers and topographical dictionaries within the Ancestry databases, registration district descriptions at GENUKI (www.fhsc.org.uk/genuki/REG/) and links for regional maps, such as the one at Origins (www.origins.org.uk/genuki/NFK/norfolk/maps/).

Looking at a Problem
Whether it is the first census search or the fifth, sometimes people are impossible to find. Sometimes there was a move, the name was recorded differently, or there was a human error on the part of the census workers. There may be a modern indexing error as well. When the subject of the search cannot be found, a good idea is to change the angle. Come at the search from something other than the name; focus on time or place.

Regarding time, there are five different census dates and five different sets of data, each with details on tens of millions of people. It makes a lot of sense to look at only relevant search results; search only the census years that fit your facts, and search them one at a time. In other words, a global search of all censuses at once is not the best approach.

Time has another element which is the birth year of the person being searched. There is no point in retrieving results for people over age fifty if your ancestor left England at a much younger age. The search box permits entering a birth year and entering a range around it (one, two, five, ten, or twenty years). Birth year is calculated by subtracting the age recorded in the census from the year of the census (e.g., someone reporting an age of forty-one in 1861 is calculated to have been born in 1820). For common names repeating a search many times, each time adjusting the birth year by one, facilitates a careful review of results, because you examine them in smaller groupings.

Place information is also worthy of careful consideration and adjustment. First, notice that the search box has two options to consider--the place of birth and the place of residence at the time of the census. Think about what each means, and if you are unsure of the nature of your place facts, then try both.

Then consider the area that needs to be searched. Is it all of England, or Wales? Even if you do not know where someone came from, consider carrying out the search one county at a time. Once again, this method gives you the advantage of few entries to examine each time.

As you learn your way around the search features you will discover that districts, cities, towns and parishes can, in turn, be reviewed section by section. There is much to be learned by browsing the area where your ancestor lived. For example, social details can emerge, and people hidden by transcription errors can be found.

Simple Strategies
Lots of data may seem daunting, but if you keep the approach simple and methodical, you can cope. Take the censuses one at a time, consider the different elements of time, and break down a search geographically.

Method offers another dividend. Following someone and his/her family through consecutive census returns is an important research strategy. The more information you can extract about ancestors, relations, friends, and social settings, the better equipped you are to move the search further into earlier decades and centuries.

Sherry Irvine, CGRS, 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. She teaches online at MyFamily.com. Recently she served a two-year term as president of the Association of Professional Genealogists.