What You Can Find From Census Records

A good tip when looking through these records is to get your grandparents' and great grandparents' details and start on the most recent collection, the 1901 census. Because of the 100-year rule about publishing data, the most recent publicly available census is the 1901 census.

The census provides us with a representation of the population on a particular night, and is a unique document in family history as it shows whole family groupings. The head of each household or institution was responsible for filling in the census returns. The forms required information about each person staying there on the designated census night.

Some of the most important questions in the census returns were:

- Full name (middle names were not always shown)
- Age (in 1841, the ages of under 15's were rounded to the nearest five years)
- Marital status (from 1851)
- Relationship to the head of the household (from 1851)
- Sex
- Occupation
- Place of birth
- Medical disabilities (from 1851)

As an example, using the six decades of census records from 1851 to 1901 on www.ancestry.co.uk we have traced back generations of a family-run business to illustrate how a government record can paint a picture of your family's history.

An Example - W T Copeland
William Taylor Copeland, a porcelain manufacturer working in Stoke-on-Trent, can be found in the 1851 London trade directories with an address at 160 New Bond Street in London. He was MP, born in 1809 at St Giles in the Fields in London.
- He took part in the most important event of 1851, the Great Exhibition, where he displayed a selection of porcelain statues, jugs, vases and crockery.
- The 1861 to 1891 censuses show that Copeland had established a successful family business that was still flourishing even after his death 20 years later as his sons continued in the pottery business. William was clearly an important person, because he can be found living in the Manor House in Bushey on the 1861 census, with six servants.
- William Taylor Copeland bought the business established by his father, William Copeland, and his business partner Josiah Spode after his father's death. In 1833 he became the sole owner of the porcelain company, and after the success of the Great Exhibition in 1851, he passed the business down three generations of Copelands.
- His four sons are all described as manufacturers and merchants on the 1871 census, three years after their father's death.
- The 1861 census for Edward, one of the sons, tells us that he employs over 800 people in his factory. The pottery business was eventually taken over by William T Copeland's youngest son Richard, who passed the profession on to his son William F Copeland after he graduated from university.