Hi Amanda, Dave and those interested in census Dave is quite right in his comments re census before 1841. But occasionally you are lucky and find something useful. There is a census taken in 1803 by Samuel James rector of St Nicholas Church, Radstock, of the inhabitants of Radstock. He lists all the households, the heads by name and age, marital status, and inhabitants of the house but not by name in their case, just status and sex. For example, Thomas LATCHEM, 40, 1 wife, 2 sons and 1 daughter. He also lists lodgers and servants. William Latchem 18...but was he a lodger or a servant? And whose house was he living in? He has an interesting summary in number of male housekeepers, female housekeepers, wives and female servants (isn't that a lovely way of enumerating wives!), male children, female children, lodgers and male servants. I just came on it when going through a film of the parish records of Radstock at the local LDS Family History Centre. So many odd things are found when looking at the actual records. Oh, yes, he also lists number of oxen, cows, young cattle, sheep, pigs, riding horses and draft horses. Helps in picturing the village/town in 1803. Maybe it would be an interesting time looking at the parish records for St Philips & Jacob! Marjorie Latcham Keates Canada >Censuses taken before 1841 will be of little value to you because they were >numbers only jobs. Sometimes you may make a rare find where a local vicar >made an unofficial list in a register in order to complete the required >return but 1801 -1831 censuses generally do not contain information that >identifies individuals. > >Dave > >-----Original Message----- >From: [email protected] >[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of >[email protected] >Sent: 21 August 2012 01:27 >To: [email protected] >Subject: [B&S] Bristol Census Prior to 1841 > > >Hi everyone, > >I'm reading a book on St Phillips & Jacob area at present and it mentions >the censuses taken in Bristol starting in 1801 and every ten years >thereafter. >So what happened to these early pre-1841 censuses? Do they exist still >somewhere? is the information in them too crude to be useful perhaps? >Maybe they are available through mormon Family history libraries on film. > >Any information would be great! > >Amanda Kerby >NZ