Census Extraction Sheet

Who this is for

One household from one census, copied out in full. The header takes the year, place and reference of the return; the table takes each person in the order they were listed, with the relationship, status, age, occupation and birthplace written exactly as the enumerator wrote them.

Anyone working from census returns, whichever country's, who has learned that a hurried note of 'found them' is not the same as a copy of what the page says.

What this helps you track

• Which census, which place and which reference the household was found in
• Every member of the household, in the order they were listed
• Relationship, status, age, occupation and birthplace as the return gives them
• The neighbours or lodgers who turn out to be relatives later
• Anything odd on the page — a crossing-out, a hard-to-read word — noted at the time

How to use it

1. Fill the header with the census year, the place or district, the full reference as the archive or website gives it, and the household's address.
2. Copy each person in the order they appear, one to a row. Do not reorder them by age or family; the order on the page is evidence in itself.
3. Write relationship, status, age, occupation and birthplace as they are written, including abbreviations and spellings you think are wrong. Put your own reading in the notes.
4. Where a column on the return has no equivalent here, use the notes column — the returns of different countries and years ask different things.
5. Note anything the page shows beyond the words: a crossed-out entry, a different hand, a mark in the margin.
6. File the sheet by surname and year, and add the reference to your source log. The browser version saves in your own browser and prints as a completed sheet.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Why copy it out when I have an image?

Because extracting makes you read every word, and it is at that point that the lodger with the mother's maiden name is noticed. The sheet is also readable at a glance in a way a photograph of a faded page is not.

The columns do not match my country's census.

They are deliberately general — name, relationship, status, age, occupation, birthplace — because returns differ by country and by year. Put anything the return asks that is not covered here in the notes column, labelled.

Should I correct obvious mistakes in the return?

No. Copy what is written, then say in the notes what you think it should be and why. The return is the source; your correction is an interpretation.

What goes in the status column?

Whatever the return records about each person beyond their relationship — marital condition, whether they were a visitor or a servant, or anything similar that your census asks. Leave it blank where the return has nothing.