* Citing English Census

[BakerJL75]

It will be quite obvious, I'm a confused American. This is a genealogical question, not a technical one, so I've put it in General Usage. I hope that is OK.

I try to mostly stick to Evidence Explained method of citations. In the US citing the jurisdiction/civil division in census records is fairly simple. City, County, State, Country. Smallest to largest. I am totally confused how to do this with English census records. I don't know even if I use U.K., England, or both for the Country. An 1871 census, for example, lists Civil Parish or township, City or Municipal Borough, Municipal ward, Parliamentary Borough, Town of, Village or Hamlet, Local Board or Improvement Commissioners District and Ecclesiastical District. Some are filled in, some are not. How do I know which to use? Then their is Class, Piece, Folio, page and on Ancestry.com GSU roll. The built in template International Census (U.K.) doesn't help much as I still do not know what to put for Jurisdiction and Civil Division, although Class, Piece, Folio, and page are easy enough to figure out.

Is there a relatively easy explanation somewhere? I've looked online but am still very confused.

[ColeValleyGirl]

Hi Jackie. I've moved this to Research where it sits best.

[BakerJL75]

Thank you

[Gowermick]

First off, we normally refer to individual Countries (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales) rather than UK.

Then in descending order county, then town/city/hamlet. Like the USA we normally quote them in ascending order. ( Town, County, Country). The additional information you quoted, which is found on some censuses are really for administrative purposes only, and not usually needed to idenitify the actual place.

Some examples from my tree are Manchester, Lancashire, England, or Corby, Northamptonshire, England

A problem you may encounter is when boundary changes affected what county a town belonged to. Take Warrington (near Liverpool), which is located close to boundary of Lancashire and Cheshire. So over time it was referred to as Warrington, Cheshire, England or Warrington, Lancashire, England, dependant upon the current state of the boundary. I suggest you stick to your chosen preference, as once geocoded, it does’t make much differnce to FH

As for quoting census reference I use year, Class (HO107 or RGxx), then Piece, then Folio then Page. The 1841 is slightly different, in that the Piece is Followed by Book, then Folio then Page

Some examples:-
1841 HO107 Piece 0024 Book 1, Folio 047 Page 08
1851 HO107 Piece 1234 Folio 039 Page 06
1861 RG09 Piece 2468 Folio 012 Page 24

Hope this helps

[AdrianBruce]

The National Archives references for censuses for England & Wales (not Scotland or Ireland) are described on https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hel ... r-censuses

So for instance HO 107/2264 folio 62 page 17 schedule 60 consists of

• Department & Series (aka Class) HO 107 (beware you need the space between letters and numbers if searching the TNA catalog);
• Piece 2264;
• Folio 62 (i.e. the two sides of the sheet of paper);
• Page 17 (beware - you can probably get away with the folio and without the page but you can't do the reverse as the pages probably repeat within the Piece;
• Schedule 60 (i.e. household 60 on that page);

The 1841 needs the extra Book reference, as mentioned on that linked page.
The 1911 and 1921 don't need folio or page as the Schedule suffices for the 1911, while the 1921 needs Enumeration District and Schedule for some odd reason. (As an aside, the 1921 is the only English & Welsh census where I use the Enumeration District - the rest of the time it's just confusing baggage).

Most UK genealogists run with that TNA Reference as the centrepiece as it defines exactly which household is being shown. (With luck Class and Piece are visible in the image, page is pre-printed and the stamped folio appears only on one side of the paper so either you hope it bleeds through or you check the previous or next image. Or you believe Ancestry or FindMyPast, of course.)

With the TNA Reference in place, it then becomes up to you what place-names you bother mentioning because you've already uniquely defined the household - the rest is for information. Many of the pages don't populate all the possible boxes anyway - that reference I copied out above just has "Township of Longton" (which is in Lancashire) - the Ecclesiastical District is blank, as is City or Borough, Town, and Village. Just make it look like a real placename (usually settlement, county, country, but occasionally suburb then settlement etc), so that's probably a case of just choosing one from the list at the top of the page.

As Mike indicates, we seriously can't be doing with "UK" - part from anything, there never was a UK census - Scotland, Ireland and England & Wales (the two together) each had their own censuses - the Scottish referencing is different again.

I have no idea what Civil Division is supposed to mean - possibly the Enumeration District? I guess the Jurisdiction must be the place-name.

[ColeValleyGirl]

I use England or Wales, never England and Wales. Although the relevant Census was described as England and Wales, apart from the earliest censuses, the forms were different. There was a question about language on the Welsh form, instructions later on included Welsh and answers could be in Welsh too. Forms for Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Mann had differences as well. From memory the Channel Islands mirrored England. And no, the channel islands and IoM are not part of the uk.

[Mark1834]

On the basis that a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a couple of my typical census sources:

1881.PNG (8.96 KiB) Viewed 4648 times

• Just "Census" for any UK location (~95% of mine are England or Wales), and year.
• Contemporary name of the location, usually to the Parish or District level, followed by the abbreviated county name (MDX = Middlesex, as Chelsea was in Middlesex then, not London).
• Street address in parentheses where available (often missing for rural locations).
• National Archives reference, with the piece number padded with leading zeros such that the Records Window sorts geographically. I don't pad folio or page numbers. The Schedule number follows in parentheses, preceded by #.

Here is a 1911 example:

1911.PNG (8.64 KiB) Viewed 4648 times

• Similar title style, but London has now expanded, and Fulham is in London, not Middlesex.
• Just piece number (with leading zeros) and Schedule (no leading zeros) are sufficient to identify the sheet uniquely.

I could record much more detail if I chose to do so. I could say England Census, or England & Wales, but I find that type of detail unnecessary - a district in London won't be in any other national census! Similarly for 1911 in particular, there is a whole host of additional detail such as Enumeration District etc that is superfluous.

The supporting image files are named in a similar way, with just the district and National Archives reference number. I note where I obtained the information from, but not when, or what the web url was at the time.

If you are a disciple of EE (and it should be clear from this that I am not!), you may want to record a lot more. Personally, I stick to what I regard as both necessary and sufficient to allow the source to be verified.

[AdrianBruce]

I use England or Wales, never England and Wales. Although the relevant Census was described as England and Wales, apart from the earliest censuses, the forms were different. ...

That's true so thanks for clarifying - my references to England & Wales really referred to the organising body - the GRO of England & Wales - but geographically and forms-wise, England and Wales were effectively separate censuses.

[ColeValleyGirl]

If it helps, my attempt to be mostly EE-compliant (using Generic sources as this was before Source Templates were released) ended up with source title for censuses like:

1911 census of England, Warwickshire, Birmingham, Aston, George Brookes; digital image, Findmypast (http://www.findmypast.co.ukco.uk : accessed 21 September 2016); citing TNA Class: RG13; Piece: 2806; Folio: 118; Page: 38.

or

1851 census of Wales, Pembrokeshire, Llanfair Nant Y Gof, John James; digital image, Findmypast (http://www.findmypast.co.uk : accessed 29 December 2017); citing TNA Class: HO107; Piece: 2480; Folio: 195; Page: 3.

i.e. for location: Country, County, City, Suburb or Country, County, Village

I'm sure they could be improved in EE terms but they work for me.

[Mark1834]

That's interesting Helen. I think it shows that there are as many ways of structuring sources as there are users!

You have a lot of detail in the title. For me, some of it could be recorded in the Repository or Publication Info fields. Do you load everything into the title, or repeat the information in those fields as well?

Incidentally, there is a typo in the url of your 1911 source...

[ColeValleyGirl]

Mark, using a generic source, everything goes in the title, which I construct using a personal fork of the Add Source from Template plugin. (I have the authors permission to release my fork, which does the media handling as well, just as soon as I can get around to making it V7 compliant).

The only other fields I use (as finding aids within my project) are the source type (Census in these instances) and the Short Title (which matches the Media Record Title).

Full title for censuses is constructed thus:

{Year} Census of {Country}, {Jurisdiction}, {Division}, {Name}; digital image, {website} (http://{url}: accessed {Accession Date}; citing {Reference}

and short title:

Census {Year} {Country}, {Jurisdiction}, {Division}, {Name}

I'm planning a re-do at some point (hopefully this year) when I'll decide what Source Templates to use.

[dewilkinson]

Just in case it helps here is a census entry that I have just been entering so you can see how I have chosen to do it.

As was mentioned previously English county boundaries have not been static. I do try and record the place as it was at the time. For example upto 31st March 1889 London was literally just the City of London, the rest was administerd by counties. The County of London was formed on 1st April 1889 and remained until 31st March 1965 when Greater London (a much expanded area) was formed and is extant. I am lucky in that I have my granddad's county atlas of the UK from 1944 which helps enormously with London, Ridings of Yorkshire etc.

1891 census example.png (148.9 KiB) Viewed 4498 times

[ColeValleyGirl]

Ohers have made the point about county boundaries changing, but place names change as well. My Welsh census is of the village of LLanfair-nant-y-Gof, which became effectively Trecwn in the 1930s when the RNAD Munitions store (built on top of my ancestors' mill) there became the most important element of the locality.

[victor]

I always stick to the old county boundaries. The changes in boundaries are really administration boundaries. To me the old boundaries still exist.
If a person in say 1891 lived in Sheffield, West Yorkshire. Today it is Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The person lived in West Yorkshire at the time of the census and that is what I keep.
I do the same with the many places which have been changed to a different county. I keep them in the old county after all that was where they lived at the time
When it comes to Yorkshire one must put, East, North or West Yorkshire. There are similar place names in the differnt Yorkshire area. For example there is Hessle, East Yorkshire (near Hull) and Hessle West Yorkshire (near Wakefield)
Victor

[tatewise]

Regarding place names, consider how you may want to handle geocoding of Lat/Longitude for placement on maps.
If you use the old place names they probably will not automatically geocode, so you have two options:
1) Manually geocode each one.
2) Use the Standardized field to hold the modern-day equivalent place name that will auto-geocode.
Also, consider how much you record in the Place field and how much in the Address field.
See FHUG Knowledge Base Working with Places and Addresses that discusses the options.

[Gary_G]

When trying to use the Evidence Explained style of citation, the book's terminology for the census content is really confusing. The book uses the terms "Jurisdiction" and "Civil Division" to try to make the QuickCheck Model citations somewhat generic across countries. Unfortunately; those terms are quite ambiguous , when looking for the associated data on a British census return.

The EE-style census citation format for the UK is:
[Census_Id], [ Jurisdiction], [Civil_Division], [Page_Id], [Person_of_Interest]; [Format], [Website_Title] ([Digital_Location] : [Date]); [Credit_Line].

If I take a guess at what is required, based on an example 1901 census return, I suspect that [Jurisdiction] would be the "Administrative County, "London", and [Civil_Division] would be the "Civil Parish", "Islington".

So; the citation would look something like:
1901 census of England, London, Islington, p. 19 (stamped), household of George A. May; image, FindMyPast (https://www.findmypast.com : accessed 28 January 2020); citing Public Records Office, RG 13/162 folio 101.

Does my interpretation of "Jurisdiction" and "Civil Division" make sense?

[AdrianBruce]

... If I take a guess at what is required, based on an example 1901 census return, I suspect that [Jurisdiction] would be the "Administrative County, "London", and [Civil_Division] would be the "Civil Parish", "Islington". ...
Does my interpretation of "Jurisdiction" and "Civil Division" make sense?

It makes sense to me - the "county" and the "place" are needed so I can agree on putting "London" into the Jurisdiction and "Islington" into the Civil Division.

As you say, those terms are pretty ambiguous since there are lots of levels of jurisdictions in England & Wales from county down to, err, civil parish...

Logically, if you have (as you do) the TNA reference of RG 13/162 folio 101 that gets you to one side or another of a sheet of paper and the page number tells you which side. So the London and Islington bits are really just for clarity and to make it understandable on first glance.

With the London boroughs, I will often try to find a subdivision - I'd be tempted to put "Highbury" here as a subdivision of "Islington" - Highbury is listed on the front page of the Enumeration District - but that's only because I've heard of Highbury (Tottenham Hotspur fans look away at this point...) so it helps me to get a mental picture of the place. Given that you have the full TNA Reference, it is not necessary to include Highbury and arguably confuses matters if you haven't heard of those names.

PS - Tottenham Hotspur is a "soccer" team. Their deadly rivals, Arsenal, play in Highbury. And that is the only football reference I intend to make this year. I shall revert now to obscure Star Trek references...

[Mark1834]

(Pedant alert ) The correct name of the UK archive office at the time was the Public Record Office (no s). It became the National Archives about 20 years ago, so should you quote the name of the institution as it was when the record was made, or when you accessed it...?

As an aside, I would cite it using the Schedule number, which identifies the household unambiguously, rather than the name of one individual in that household, but that's purely a matter of your preferred style.

[Gary_G]

Thanks, fellows. The points you made help. And... If I keep things simple, it will likely be easier to set up a template to have AS fill in most of the fields that EE-style "requires". That makes data-entry go far more quickly.

[AdrianBruce]

(Pedant alert ) The correct name of the UK archive office at the time was the Public Record Office (no s). It became the National Archives about 20 years ago, so should you quote the name of the institution as it was when the record was made, or when you accessed it...? ...

Oooh! I am in admiration of your pedantry! (PS this is said tongue in cheek!)

... As an aside, I would cite it using the Schedule number, which identifies the household unambiguously, rather than the name of one individual in that household, but that's purely a matter of your preferred style.

Good point - though I tend to use both (household) Schedule number and name (of person of interest) - again, that's just my style. Except...

When you need to cite the 1911 census, there is no folio - nor any need for one, as the household schedule number pretty much performs the same function. Thus my 1911 TNA Reference is along the lines of
RG 14, Piece 99999, schedule 999

But the 1921 is different again as the schedule numbers for the 1921 repeat inside a piece number, whereas the 1911 schedule numbers don't. Thus my 1921 is
RG 15, Piece 99999, Enum Dist 9, schedule 999
Enum Dist = Enumeration District - feel free to abbreviate to ED - I don't as I get it confused with an Electoral District.

[Gary_G]

Adrian;

These are good tips. Thank you.

I have a question about using just the civil parish and administrative county.
Are those something one can geo-locate for mapping purposes?

[Mark1834]

I must admit, it doesn’t bother me, but some users put great emphasis on producing citations that are precisely “correct”, down to exact punctuation and font, so for them getting the archive name exactly right is probably important.

Since moving to exclusively templated sources for censuses, I also add the street address (where available) to the citation template. It’s not strictly necessary (except for 1921, as I had forgotten Adrian’s point regarding duplicate schedules), but it helps readability. I also include leading zeros in the piece number (e.g. RG14/00123) so they sort more or less geographically. Not academically “correct”, but it aids proofreading.

[AdrianBruce]

... I have a question about using just the civil parish and administrative county.
Are those something one can geo-locate for mapping purposes?

County on its own is so big that I never bother with geolocating it. However, civil parish (in combination with the county) usually maps easily - I doubt that geolocation is finding the civil parish itself but the name of the civil parish is usually the name of a town, village or suburb and that's inside the civil parish in the vast majority of cases.

[fhtess65]

See this question/answer on Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained website:

https://evidenceexplained.com/node/1831

[Gary_G]

Good points, Adrian and Mark. Thank you.

Thanks, Teresa. Actually; Elizabeth Shown Mills' Evidence Explained website often tends to get me more confused than I was before. After years of reading those posts, I feel that she seems to seldom answer a question in a way that I can see a solid rule-of-thumb that will work elsewhere.

In the case of which I'm thinking, there isn't much location detail on the actual census page. That is because the enumerator has put much of it in the lead-in sheets for the census. So; it would really help to know the actual function of the [ Jurisdiction] and [Civil_Division] parameters. That way I would know what I need to find in the census record as a whole.

Frankly; I think I'm going to simply look for something that both defines the census location and is able to be geo-coded. I'll still show the information in the reverse order she prefers. However; if that's not what she intended, then I hope she will strive to be more clear in future.