Sunday 10 April 2011

To mark the arrival of the 2011 UK Census forms on our doormats, I've uploaded a page of Kisby's and Kisbee's who appear in the 1851 England Census. So far I've spotted over 230 of them! This compares with 370 in 1881 and over 500 in 1911.

The 1851 Census was the first to ask for exact ages, places of birth and relationships to the head of the household. So it is extremely useful to genealogists! Most Kisby's and Kisbee's seem to have done their absolute best to fill it in correctly, though quite a few people seem to struggle to remember where they were born, or give themselves a more flattering age.

Of course, these problems are minor in comparison to making head-or-tail of the census in 2011. Could the Office of National Statistics make it more complicated or obtrusive if they tried?!