Castle Hedingham Parish Records

Notes relating to 1841 Census records

The layout of the census may look a rather strange way to display the information but this is the format being used to enter records for the FreeCEN project at Rootsweb. It works like this:

Each new household starts with a '0' in the Schd (Schedule) field. If you 'unhide' all the columns, some will be blank and others marked with an X. Those marked with X will refer to comments in the final column. Those left blank are unused on the 1841 census but were used in subsequent years.

Some words of warning:

Aaron NEWMAN, the enumerator for Enumeration District 5 (Enumeration Districts 1-4 were in Sible Hedingham), did not indicate clearly where one household ended and another began. He did place a bracket next to names of family members within a household, but for families with in-laws or other relatives present, or servants with a different surname, it is difficult to tell if they were all living in the same house or were neighbours. Some families appear to have been entered late and appear on the bottom line of subsequent pages, so in the middle of what appears to be one household, there will be a single name which doesn't fit, then return to the original household at the top of the following page.

For example:

At the bottom of Page 2 we find:

HARRINGTON, James, Male, 40, Tailor, born Essex

At the bottom of Page 3 is:

HARRINGTON, Ann, Female, 40, born Essex

At the bottom of Page 4 is:

HARRINGTON, James, Male, 12, Tailor, born Essex

At the bottom of Page 6 (no Harringtons on Page 5) is:

HARRINGTON, Ann, Female, 10, born Essex

At the bottom of Page 7 is:

HARRINGTON, Margaret, Female, 8, born Essex

At the bottom of Page 9 is:

HARRINGTON, Elizabeth, Female, 4, born Essex

You can check against the baptismal records to find this is all one family, but it is very difficult to find them on the census unless you check the bottom of each page. This only happens in Enumeration District 5; Enumeration District 6 is more straightforward. Both enumerators (Samuel NOTT did Enumeration District 6) wrote the street name at the top of each page only when it changed from the previous page, except for specific house names, so it is sometimes difficult to tell where a family was actually living. In the case of those split up at the bottom of each page, I cannot say where they were actually living as the tops of some pages show all the people below live on River Lane while other family members are on a page showing only St James's Street.

The 1841 census was written in pencil and thus some records are very faint. I have tried to read them as best I could but in some cases there weren't even marks visible. I haven't re-checked the 1841 census yet -- it's on my list of things to do.

Holly Adams

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