1851 Census

Sunday 30th March 1851

The amount of personal data collected increased, the result being a huge increase in the benefit of census data to family historians. The data collected was as follows;

Address information included more detail than previously.
Name of "each person who abode in the house on the night of 30th March 1851".
The relationship of each person to the head of the family, the head usually being the first person listed.
Each person's "Condition" or marital status. Married (M), Unmarried (U), Widowed (W), Divorced (D).
Each person's age at the time of their previous birthday was recorded, with no rounding down. There were, however, many reasons to lie!
Sex was indicated by means of the age being entered into a Male/Female column.
Rank, profession or occupation. The most common occupation at this time was that of 'Ag. Lab' or Agricultural Labourer. Always be aware that some folk would 'promote' themselves into a more respectable post than they actually held.
Where born; parish and county. If born overseas only the country was recorded. Once again, fear of the Poor Law and settlement rules resulted in many lies being told to enumerators.
Whether the person was blind, deaf or dumb.

Free census record forms are available at www.eyfhs.org.uk/census