Nine censuses are now available covering every decade from 1841 through to 1921. It is not possible to present the images of these censuses for Seaton Ross as they are copyrighted, although the data isn’t. However, what we do have is an (almost) full transcription of the eight censuses from 1841 to 1911 which has allowed the extraction of statistics which are presented separately in the Census Data page.

With the exception of the 1841 census, which asked less questions, most of these censuses contain the same data from the same questions. Earlier censuses of Seaton Ross were also carried out between 1801 and 1831, but only numbers were counted, not names.

Some categories of ‘occupation’ have been omitted – for example ‘Farmer’s Wife’, as the wife of a farmer is already identified as such. In occupational terms a farmer’s wife can be anything from a full time worker on the farm to a full time child carer and every step in between. These issues are discussed more fully on the pages looking at occupation etc..

Note that analyses of the data in these records can be found on the Census Data pages.

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Click on the images below to download pdf files with all the records from Seaton Ross.

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Transcribing and accuracy

The census records offered here have gone through three stages of transcription:

The National Archives say: “In every census year an enumerator delivered a form to each household in the country for them to complete. The heads of household were instructed to give details of everyone who slept in that dwelling on census night, which was always a Sunday. The forms completed by each household, known as schedules, were collected a few days later by the enumerator. From 1841 to 1901 the information from the schedules was then copied into enumeration books.” 

The original spellings or surname could vary considerably and we often see names written in different ways – such as Pullyn, Pulleyn and Pullyen. Houses were mostly not named but referred to by the occupier, as in Brighton’s house – however, farms were an early exception. Hence these too could be misspelled or misheard – my favorite is a version of Alberries in the 1841 census: ‘Hold Olberry’.

All the censuses were, of course, handwritten and this produced a problem for those given the task of transcribing them into the databases. There are understandably many cases of Ms, Ws, Bs and Hs being miss-read and whole names being misinterpreted – such as Bitson for Watson.

In the course of preparing these records, the originals have been carefully proofread and as many corrections made as possible. Although not eliminated, we believe mistranscriptions and misspellings are much reduced.