1841 census

[Rheghead]

The 1841 census is now available online at ancestry.co.uk for all those interested.

[porshiepoo]

I have accounts with many of these places but still I can't find any reference to my dads natural father.

[lassieinfife]

I am having same problem porshiepoo... I have my grandmothers wedding and death certificate but no matter what site I use cant discover her birth certificate

[susan.leith]

It's only the English census for 1841 that's available at Ancestry.co.uk

The Caithness census for 1841 ia available at
http://freecen.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl

Can be slow at times, but worth waiting for.

[lynn prow]

MORE INFORMATION ON 1841 CENSUS
SNAPSHOT of Scotland's people as they were one summer's day 165 years
ago is, at last, accessible on the internet, providing an invaluable
resource for genealogists and history lovers. Following a five-year
project to make Scotland's past census records available online, the
1841 census - the first full census that asked people's place of birth
and occupation, rather than simply making a head count - completes this
unique archive of Victorian census details.

The copperplate handwritten records, entered diligently into the parish
census books - a task usually undertaken by local schoolmasters - on 6
June 1841, went online yesterday on the ScotlandsPeople website
(www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk). The picture it gives is of a Scotland with
a population of 2,620,184 - just half of what it is today - a population
in the throes of major social and economic upheaval, with thousands
abandoning the rural areas of Scotland to find work in cities expanding
rapidly after the impact of the Industrial Revolution.

Thousands of labourers were flooding into the country from Ireland to
find work, too, especially in Lanarkshire's booming coal and steel
industries, and the census indicates that an astonishing 5 per cent of
Scotland's population recorded their birthplace as Ireland. Railways
were expanding - the Glasgow, Paisley and Greenock Railway opened in
1841 - and the textile industries were at their peak but about to slump,
bringing more poverty on the way. In the Highlands, the population was
as high as it has ever been, but the first waves of emigration and
clearance had started, and these would intensify within a few years as
the potato famine wreaked havoc.

In the meantime, the census recorders went about their door-knocking
business, in the process recording long-lost occupations such as that of
muslin sewer, heddle maker and warper, all involved in the textile industry.

"These records offer a truly amazing insight into Scotland's past," says
Dr Richard Callison of the Dundee-based IT company Scotland Online,
which maintains the ScotlandsPeople website in partnership with the
nation's main archive offices - the General Register Office for
Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord
Lyon. The website, funded by the Scottish Executive, now offers some 50
million Scottish records online and, with more than 400,000 registered
users, has become one of the world's leading genealogy websites, says
Callison. "As well as accessing the records of their ancestors, visitors
can also view entries for some of our most famous sons, such as Robert
Burns, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Harry Lauder."

Duncan Macniven, the Registrar General for Scotland, is enthusiastic
about the addition of the 1841 census to the website: "For family
historians, it's just wonderful. I personally have not looked up my
family yet on the 1841 census, but I'm going home tonight and doing it,
because it is so good."

cheers
Lynn