THE STURTIVANT/STURTEVANT FAMILY IN
ENGLISH CENSUS RECORDS
The first official census in
Britain was in 1801. One is held every ten years, but individual
names were not required by the central government until 1841. A few
local enumerators compiled their own lists of households, but only a
very small number of these survive (see the 1821 entry for London).
Censuses are not available to the general public until 100
years have elapsed, and then only on microfilm. At present available
are those taken on the nights of 7 June 1841, 30 March 1851, 7/8
April 1861, 2 April 1871, 3 April 1881 and 5 April 1891. The 1901
census will become available on 1 January 2002 in computerised form.
The 1841 census was the first to contain the names of all
people in the household, but ages were recorded only to the nearest
five years below, except for children under 15 which were exact. At
or above that age, those between 15 and 19 were recorded as 15,
between 20 and 24 as 20 and so on.. Sex and occupations are given,
but not the relationship to the head of the household. Place of birth
was only recorded as to whether or not it was in the same county as
then residing - 'Y' for yes and 'N' for no.
From 1851 the
relationship (if any) to the head of household was given; exact age
(as reported by the informant, so not always accurate); and where
born (usually county and place if in England and Wales, otherwise
usually only the country). In 1891 an additional column was
introduced for whether employed.
Most provincial family
members have now been traced, though there are some gaps, possibly
due to the enumerators having missed people. Quite a number of known
London family members are still not traced, mainly due to the huge
numbers of entries needed to be searched where the residence on
census night is unknown.
Helping in tracing missing
entries would be welcome.
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