Census for the 1770's

[mick851]

in trying to trace my family tree, how do i get the details for people born in 1777 and earlier?

thanks mick

[Guest DIZZINICK]

in trying to trace my family tree, how do i get the details for people born in 1777 and earlier?

thanks mick

In doing Genealogical research you should work backwards from what you know to what you dont. Having used Births, Marriages and Deaths records together with the census returns you can use the I G I @ Family Search.org, putting into this names and rough dates may find Baptisms, Marriages. It is helpful if you know roughly where your ancestor were living at the time as places will be displayed. Armed with this information you can find where the relevant Parish registers are kept, and from these registers further details may be found. Hope this is of some use.

Link to Familysearch

[DaveH]

in trying to trace my family tree, how do i get the details for people born in 1777 and earlier?

thanks mick

As I understand it the key dates are 1841, 1837 and 1536.

Census information has been taken in the 10 yearly census's since 1841, so there is no census for 1777 and before.

The first census was actually in 1801 but this was merely a head count with no usable genealogical data, the real stuff starts in 1841 but even they are incomplete and contain limited information.

Many websites now off 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 census information, usually at a cost, although some are free.

The 1911 is also now becoming available, - before the end of its 100 data protection closure period

This data protection means that the more recent census's are not yet available, and due to war in the 20th century, some of them, like 1941, do not exist.

Beyond and between census's we need to use records of Birth, Marriage & Death. these started in 1837 when certificates for each event were issued and the details recorded. These are official documents and are available for about £7 each from Government offices like the ONS, although the INDEX to these records can be viewed for free on several web sites. Even these records are not 100% complete.

Before 1837 we are reliant on the church and their Parish Records which date back to law passed by Henry VIII during the reformation of the church in 1536 so I suppose it only applies to CofE / Protestant / Anglican churches. These records are not complete, vary from parish to parish in quality and content and are not centralised so tracking them down can be a problem. The family history IGI index is made up of them but is far from accurate or complete, - however it is a very useful tool and at times can take you back a long way. However, records start from when the church opened and so many records start well after 1536.

Before 1536 there are few records and to go back further requires skill, lucky find and prefereably being related at that time to someone rich and famous, - a King, Baron or a Duke as titled families often have well known pedigrees and available family trees.

[RichardB]

There is/was a partial Nether Hallam 1831 Census featuring names, occupations etc - in many ways better than the 1841 (given its limited coverage), hopefully find it soon, unless anyone else copied it when I first posted it.

[bonnie]

There is/was a partial Nether Hallam 1831 Census featuring names, occupations etc - in many ways better than the 1841 (given its limited coverage), hopefully find it soon, unless anyone else copied it when I first posted it.

The 1831 census for Nether Hallam is available through the Sheffield Family History Society and is still within copyright.

[RichardB]

The 1831 census for Nether Hallam is available through the Sheffield Family History Society and is still within copyright.

That's probably why it is no longer on the Skegness-website fella. Thanks for the update.

[DaveH]

The 1831 census for Nether Hallam is available through the Sheffield Family History Society and is still within copyright.

A document that is still within copyright after 178 years!!!

How does that work then?

Given that we are working on a 25 year copyright for books and 50 year copyright for the OS maps that seems one hell of a long time.

Wonder how much stuff we have innocently and unknowingly posted on here which IS still within copyright :rolleyes:

[Guest Jeremy]

Wonder how much stuff we have innocently and unknowingly posted on here which IS still within copyright

Probably quite a lot.

For most stuff it is safest to assume life of the author + 70 years. For example, Sidney Addy died in 1933, which is why I was able to publish a transcription of one of his books here. If the author is unknown, I usually assume that the author will have lived a normal life span of, say 70 years, and was probably not not much younger than 20 when they published the work. This means that anything published before about 1889 is likely now in the public domain.

For the 1831 census, it is covered by Crown Copyright. If the census is considered published (e.g. microfiche copies exist in a library somewhere) then the copyright term is 50 years from the date of publication. If the census is unpublished Crown Copyright protection used to be perpetual, however a change in the law means that copyright for such items is now also 50 years, but this is not retroactive, so preexisting items are still protected to 2040. However, if the census is preserved in a Public Records Repository (as I presume is the case) there is a copyright waiver to enable transcription. As far as I can tell, such transcriptions are not protected by copyright.

Jeremy