----- Original Message ----- From: "Kay DONALD CLARK" <grannykay@tiscali.co.uk> To: <SOG-UK-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 9:17 AM Subject: [SoG] Early Census Returns > Do we actually know that forms were left at the household for the occupier > to complete? Yes, the enumerators instructions were to leave the forms to be filled in by the head of household. I have seen the diary of an enumerator where he describes riding over the Westmorland fells in the snow to deliver the forms to remote households in 1851, to say nothing of the three days he spent copying them into his book. > I was led to believe at my family history class that the earlier censuses or > censi (?) were completed "on the doorstep" by the enumerator himself. He > "interviewed" each household. I suggest that you join another class :-) Seriously, some households would have had the form filled in by the enumerator. In practical terms, in the cities some enumeration districts had over 2,000 households in them - how long would it take to enumerate that on the doorstep, allowing for people not being at home when he called and all the hastle of finding information about those who were at work? > Do any examples of completed or blank self-fill forms exist? There are very few completed forms (I have a coupe of examples that I use when teaching) - most were destroyed. There are examples of uncompleted forms in the various Census Reports and in the Acts of Parliament that commissioned the census. They are laid out very much like the enumerator's book, but with a space at the bottom for the signature of the head of the household, on the back there are instructions on how to fill them in and details of the address and schedule number - entered in the first column on the left in the enumerator's book. Peter Park. Walton on Thames, Surrey, UK.