| Search by |
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The index records can be searched by Last name, First name, Parish, County (see geographic coverage below), Birth place and Age range.
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| Geographic coverage |
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Census records are now available for all counties in England and Wales.
Click here for County Map and Counts All counties should be 100% complete unless the original records are missing at The National Archives. Records known to be missing include those for the Surrey parishes of Weybridge and Walton-on-Thames (including Hersham). Due to the poor quality of the original documenst at The National Archives, a considerable proportion of the 1841 census entries for Bedfordshire are unreadable. |
| Viewing the images |
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Access to the images is provided directly from the index pages: you simply click View image button to retrieve and display the digitised image of the census return page. You can then browse backwards and forwards through the pages of the document.
Images may sometimes be difficult to read where original documents were damaged. If from your viewing of the images any of our index data is incorrect, please advise us. Click here for help viewing images and maps If you already have access to CDs or microfilm of the census images, the reference data shown in the "Details" page for each index record will be helpful. The following data is provided: Reference data
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| Accuracy of the data |
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It would be prudent to expect some inconsistencies between the index data and your own interpretation of the text on the census images.
Place names have been checked against lists of English and Welsh places, and unless the name is illegible, we anticipate that these names should generally be correct. In the case of people's names, our NameX software will allow you to retrieve relevant records even where spellings differ from the index. So you have an excellent chance of finding what you are looking for even if there have been mistakes in transcription. You can then check the original to see if you agree with the index. (And if you don't, please let us know.) The original census records were created by enumerators who copied information written by the head of household on census forms distributed to each household. There are two possible sources of errors: the head of household may have been barely literate, and could have entered details incorrectly; the enumerator may have copied details incorrectly. Although we are working with one of the most experienced agencies in the world to transcribe the census material, 100% accuracy is impossible. |
| Place of birth |
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Birth county is limited to: in the same county, in another county of England or Wales, Scotland, Ireland, or foreign.
Birth county will therefore be the county name, if born in the census county, "OUT OF COUNTY" if born in another English or Welsh county, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, FOREIGN, or AT SEA. In some cases if born abroad the country name may be given. |
| Age |
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For babies this may be given as days, weeks, or months. Ages for people older than 15 years were supposed to have been given to the nearest 5 years, but exact ages are commonly shown.
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| Households |
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A convention is used to separate entries for one house and also multiple households within one house. You will see small diagonal line just before some forenames. A double line separate houses; a single line separates households within a house. See example page.
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| Institutions |
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The returns for some institutions (eg workhouses, prisons, schools) are on special forms, others on the normal forms. But in all cases the name of the institution is shown in the Street field, even if it does not appear on the image of the original document.
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| NameX |
| NameX is a proprietary name-matching tool which allows you to find family records for names which have common variations in spelling or which may have been spelled incorrectly on some records. Click here for more help. |
| See also: | Help on Searching - Viewing Images & Maps |
| Sample return | |
| About England & Wales Census 1841 | |
| County Map and Counts |