Extract from "The Cheshire Township of Kelsall 1841-1891": An Example of Demographic Change

Sources

The sources used were the unpublished microfilmed copies of the Census Enumerator Books held at the Family Record Centre in London. Photocopies of the textual data for each of the census 1841 - 1891 were made and extracted into machine-readable format for analysis. Apart from the 1841 census, when demographic information was limited to inhabitants names, age and occupations, the other census years provided additional data on relationship to household head, marital status and birthplace to facilitate the process of nominal record linkage. There are documented limitations (Drake 1994) in using CEBs for analysis, i.e. they may not correctly reflect the data collected on the schedules completed by the householder and later transcribed into the enumerators books (Lumas 1997). There may be mistakes in spelling of surnames due to the level of literacy of both the householder and the enumerator.

When recording age there may be deliberate evasion or unintentional inaccuracy by the householder, and difficulty in the interpretation of the transcript in the actual CEB.

For the village of Kelsall all these difficulties were encountered, but the two most challenging were the legibility of the enumerator's writing and the absence of street names. Where legibility was deemed to be most challenging a second opinion was sought. Surname spelling required multiple re-iteration between census years, demonstrating a distinct advantage of comparing as many records as possible. In each CEB extraction the original spelling was used; a database was used to compare census data sorted by surname to identify spelling variations. The absence of street names and only infrequent reference to some farm names and cottages has been particularly challenging. Using a copy of the 25 inch OS map and tracings of areas of the Tithe Map (the original map was 6 feet square!) confirmed that the various enumerators did not follow the same route when compiling their return book, so adding to the complexity of household identification.

Cross-validating individuals over the period required comparison of the raw data provided in each census, revealing a further three challenges involving age, name spelling and place of birth. These are discussed in table one of the appendix.

Copyright D G Dickson 1998