Censuses in England & Wales
When were censuses conducted?
Since 1801, there has been a census of the population of England and Wales approximately every 10 years. The information available from the first four enumerations (held 10 March 1801, 27 May 1811, 28 May 1821 and 30 May 1831) is fragmentary and of little value for genealogy. Family historians rely heavily on the records from the fifth to the twelfth censuses (taken on 6 June 1841, 30 March 1851, 7 April 1861, 2 April 1871, 3 April 1881, 5 April 1891, 31 March 1901, and 2 April 1911) which are widely available and almost complete. Although it is known that the documents of some districts in some years have been lost. Under UK law, the privacy of census data is protected by a 100 Year Closure Rule. So the data collected on 19 June 1921 is expected to be released by The National Archives in January 2022. World War II had a devastating effect on census data availability. All the 1931 records were destroyed by bombing, and the 1941 collection was not conducted at all. For more details see GENUKI http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/Census |
Where can I get them?
Both Ancestry and Find My Past provide access to both images and transcriptions of census returns from 1841 to 1911. However there are many volunteer projects that seek to make census returns freely available outside the commercial databases. You should explore the following. UK Census online
http://www.ukcensusonline.com UK Genealogy Archives
http://census.ukga.org/ |
Processing census data
A census form is a very rich source of information concerning your ancestors (covering age, marital status, employment, place of birth, and disability). It is easy to miss some family history gems in the rush to move on to the next person. One useful technique is to transcribe by hand all the data from each record onto a blank form. That forces you to consider each item and may help to recognise any oddities (that may be the result of transcription errors). Both Ancestry and Family Search provide blank forms you can download for this purpose. |
Where can I learn more?
The National Archives of the UK provide some learning materials called Census Detective which (although they are designed for schools) give a very good idea of how to get the most out of a UK census record. The Australian version of Ancestry has posted a 10 minute YouTube video called How to:: Search UK Census Records |