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Web site created by David Webb with support from my sisters Anne, Geraldine and Julia.

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Select 1851 button from the above navigation buttons and select a name from the drop down menu to see where they were on census night.

INFORMATION TAKEN FROM FIND MY PAST WEB SITE.

About the 1851 census : The 1851 census was taken on 30 March and gave the total population as 17,922,768.

Known Issues in the 1851 UK census

A small number of permanent gaps exist in the 1851 census.

The 1851 census contains transcriptions and reconstructed images for around 180,000 individuals – available online for the first time – which have been retrieved from severely damaged pages.

The records for the Manchester, Chorlton, Salford, Oldham and Ashton-Under-Lyne registration districts were water damaged many years ago due to flooding.

As a result many were too fragile to be filmed or no writing was visible, but a 14 year project by the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS) has recovered information from around 82 per cent of the damaged records.

The reconstructed images follow the same layout as the originals, and where relevant include details of neighbouring households.

Searching the 1851 UK census

The golden rule of family history is to check the original historical record, or 'primary source', wherever possible. We have provided clear images of the original census enumeration books for you to view once you've found the right family in the indexes.

When using census returns you should first search the transcriptions to help locate your ancestor in the census, and then view the original images to validate your findings. It will also help you see the household in the context of surrounding households.

This is particularly important as transcribing an entire census is a huge and difficult task, and whilst we have used the expertise of our transcribers and the experience of key representatives from the genealogy community to help us translate the records, it is inevitable that there will be some errors.

Note: the census includes details of people resident in docked vessels and institutions such as prisons, workhouses, hospitals, and barracks, as well as individual households.

What can you find in the 1851 census?

Census returns can not only help us determine who our ancestors were, but they can also tell us:

• Where our ancestors were living
• Who they were living with
• What their occupations were
• If they had any servants
• Who their neighbours were
• If they had any brothers and sisters
• What their ages were at the time of the census
• If they had any disabilities

As well as giving us the above information, the fact that census returns are taken every ten years also allows us to track the movements of our ancestors through time as they perhaps move house, get married, have children or even change occupations.

The fields that have been transcribed for the 1851 census on findmypast are:

• First name
• Middle name
• Last name
• Sex
• Birth place
• Age
• Place of residence
• County
• Relationship to head of household

As well as searching for a person, you can also search the 1851 census by address - ideal for tracing your house history or exploring the local history of an area.

By noting how many households there were in a building, and whether the household included servants or boarders or visitors, you can gain insight into the social circumstances of the family.