Family History #5 – Using the Census

A typical census return

Its quite common nowadays to hear all sorts of groans and moans about the nanny state, and the Government taking down information. Sometimes they have a fair point, but it is all too easy to forget that if the Government did not take surveys and collect information, it would be so much harder to provide public services. After all, how can you plan for education, healthcare, social services, if you dont know how many people live in the country?

Until relatively recently, around the late 1830’s, the only accurate information about who was born, who was alive, and who lived where, was contained in Church records, such as registers of births, marriages and deaths. But what about people who did not go to church? At the same time, outrage about the poor conditions in many towns led to a call for better public services.

As a result, in 1837 a formal structure came into being to officially register every birth, every marriage, and every death. Four years later, in 1841, the first detailed census was taken of inhabitants of the United Kingdom. Since then censuses have been taken every 10 years, and the information contained in them is released into the public domain 100 years after the census date, when it is presumed that most people in them have died. The exception to this is the 1911 census, which was released in 2009. As a result, you can use any of the censuses from 1841 to 1911 for your research.

Census returns are organised by County, Parish, urban or rural District, Parliamentary Borough and Town of Village. The census returns record who was living in a household on census night. The returns were filled in by an enumerator, which explains why each street, and each neighbourhood, is all filled in with the same handwriting.

There is a whole range of information about each household, and each person. The entries are by road, starting from house number one onwards. The first household member is usually the head of the household, followed by spouses, children, other relatives and other people such as employees and servants.

For each person in the census, you can usually find at least some of the following: road name, house number, name and surname, relation to head of the family, condition of marriage, age on last birthday, profession or occupation, employed or self-employed, where born, and any physical or mental disabilities.

As well as residential areas, the census also covers buildings such as Hospitals, schools, lunatic asylums, naval ships and military barracks.

So you can see that finding people on a census return can tell you a whole load of information, and can really help to fill in gaps, place people at a certain place in time, and find out about family relationships that you may not be sure about. And crucially, it can also give you a lot of other information, such as someones occupation and disabilities. Who was living with who? who was living near who? Did all the same people in road work at the same place, or in the same jobs? There are all manner of things a census can reveal.

Although much of what is on a census is rather humdrum, you can also find some rather intriguing discoveries. When researching Joseph Stebbing, I was informed that in the 1871 census there was an Agnes S. Earley living next door to Joseph Stebbing. What did the S stand for? Stebbing, as it turned out!

So where can you look at the census? The most accesible port of call is probably 1901 census online and 1911 census online, although there is a charge for these services. FreeCen is a free searchable database of census returns, although it is by no means complete new transcriptions are being added regularly by volunteers. Similar services can also be found at Ancestry.

But dont rule out visiting your local library or records office, most of them have at least the most local census returns available to look at on microfilm. Also, the National Archives have all of the census returns available to look at in their reading rooms.

65 years ago today – the plight of the Poles

Polish Paratroopers preparing for take off

Perhaps the most tragic of all the tragic elements of the Battle of Arnhem is that of the 1st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade.

Recruited from exiled Poles who had escaped from occupied Poland and made their way to Britain, the Parachute Brigade had been training hard in Scotland for several years. Under the command of the Polish Government in exile, they had in fact pioneered many of the training features that were later adopted by their British counterparts, who had been relatively late in developing airborne forces. The original plan had been to use the Brigade to drop into Poland as part of the liberation of their homeland, possibly in conjunction with an underground uprising.

When Lieutenant-General Browning took over as commander of British Airborne Forces, he quickly identified the Poles as a unit that he would like under his command. From then on significant pressure was exerted on the Poles to put the Brigade under Allied command for the invasion of Europe. This sat uneasily with Major-General Sosabowski and his men, who wanted to go into action in Poland. Eventually a deal was struck whereby the Poles would fight one battle under allied command, and then revert back to Polish command.

Sosabowski’s independent, and at times abrupt manner won him very few friends among allied command. Although men such as Urquhart and Hackett had a healthy respect for the experienced Polish General, Browning had developed a deep dislike for him. Sosabowski’s known disapproval of the Arnhem plan muddied waters even further.

Originally due to jump into action on 19 September, on a drop zone south of Arnhem Bridge, their take off was delayed due to poor weather over the airfields in England. They finally arrived in Holland on 21 September, at a drop zone just south of the River Rhine at Driel. The plan was that the Poles could secure the south bank, await XXX Corps arrival and hopefully reinforce the British across the Rhine. The arrival of the Poles forced the Germans to redeploy more troops to oppose them, giving some respite to the British over the river. On 22 September the Poles, along with British engineering assistance, attempted to cross the Rhine. Although using only small rubber boats, a small number of men made it across.

The Poles had done everything that could have been expected of them, fighting in a battle in a strange country, having jumped into a desparate situation over which they had so little control. Nevertheless, wheels were already in motion that would lead to one of the most shameful legacies of Operation Market Garden.