Wednesday 6 June 2012

1841 Scottish census on FamilySearch

This is interesting - FamilySearch has placed the 1841 Scottish census online at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/2016000.

This isn't the first time that a Scottish census has appeared on the site - when the new version of the website launched the 1881 Scottish census very briefly appeared for a week or so, bizarrely with its entries located in the English and Welsh returns category, before being pulled off again almost instantly. (See http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/scotland-is-not-england-1881-census-on.html and http://scottishancestry.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/1881-census-familysearch-hokey-cokey.html)

What seems to be different this time is the fact that FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk) now has the transcripts online - the FamilySearch has sourced its data from the site, although the results for searches do not provide a link to then go through to the FindmyPast website.

The 1841 index returns a person's name, sex, age, birthplace (yes or no to born in county, or English, Irish or Foreign for 1841), parish of residence, and estimated birth year (bearing in mind over 15 years the age was rounded down to nearest multiple of 5). Data is only returned for an individual, not a household.

I did a quick search there on FamilySearch just on the term William PATON. The first entry returned was for a William ROSS or PATON, resident in Largs, apparently born 1827. When I did the same search on FindmyPast, the same entry is not found when I search for William PATON - only if I search for William ROSS. So in this regards FamilySearch was a better tool. On the downside, no address is given with the FamilySearch entries, only parish of residence - the data is nothing like as detailed as the previous 1881 release. Nevertheless, it is free.


Chris

Check out my Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk
New book: It's Perthshire 1866 - there's been a murder... www.thehistorypress.co.uk/products/The-Mount-Stewart-Murder.aspx (from June 12th 2012)

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