Getting back to your family roots

May 10 2008 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

WHERE TO FIND THE CENSUS RECORDS

Microfilm copies of the census returns are available in most county record offices and some libraries, including Liverpool Records Office.

However, it may be easier to find them on the internet.

The 1881 census is now freely available at www.familysearch.com, while the National Archives published the 1901 census for England and Wales online (www.1901censusonline.com) complete with its own index.

Other good websites are www.thenationalarchives.gov.uk, www.ancestry.co.uk, www.findmypast.com and www.britishorigins.com.

READING THE RETURNS

The census returns are, as you’d expect from the Victorians, organised in a very logical fashion.

Each county is divided into registration districts, sub districts and enumeration districts.

Each district is given a reference number and the pages of each census book are numbered – it’s worth noting down references when searching, in case you need to come back. You might not always find the people you’re looking for – spelling mistakes are frequent.

“Most historians think censuses are pretty accurate after 1851, before then you got a lot of double entry because there were no telephones or quick forms of communication so people could be questioned by more than one census taker,” explains Roger.

“Also people were very suspicious of censuses because they thought they were going to be used for taxation purposes so they would sometimes lie or conceal details.”

The 1841 census does not include as much information as the later Victorian censuses, because relationships and middle names were not recorded.

And the enumerators were instructed to round ages down to the nearest five years.

So you could, for example, have a man and a woman named Smith living in the same house, aged about 40 and 45, who might be married, or could even be a widowed brother and his spinster sister.

FINDING MISSING PEOPLE

What happens if you’ve scoured several indexes and you still can’t find your ancestor? Well, there are several reasons why people might not show up where they ought to be on a census.

Back in 1841 most people lived in parishes, but by 1901 the population of Britain had more than doubled and there was a shift from small towns to bigger cities.

Equally, it may be that your ancestors were not actually at home during the census, but were in hospital, the merchant navy or even the workhouse or lunatic asylum.

Institutions were separately enumerated and the records can be found at the end of the registration district, not necessarily in the parish where your relative might have lived.

Merchant ships and British Naval ships in British ports, including Liverpool, were all enumerated, with the master as the head of the household, but soldiers serving overseas were not included until 1911.

So if you have an ancestor who you know was alive in 1901 but he’s not on the census, it could be that he was serving in the Boer war or one of the British colonies.

* NEXT week: How to find an ancestor in the armed forces.

lauradavis@dailypost.co.uk