* Map of Census Parishes

[davidm_uk]

Does anyone know of any (online preferably) maps showing census parishes for the 1841 census, particularly Hertfordshire.

I'm looking for ancestors who should be in the 1841 census, and have downloaded all (95 so far) of the images from Ancestry for the parishes around where I think they might be (based on baptism entries I've found), but I've probably missed some parishes. A map might help me fill in the gaps.

[TimTreeby]

I would suspect for what you want the best one may well be http://maps.familysearch.org/

As this allows you to choose a parish and will then give you more details about it.
eg. Place: Ayot St Lawrence
County: Hertfordshire
Civil Registration District: Hatfield
Probate Court: Court of the Archdeaconry of Huntingdon (Hitchin Division)
Diocese: Post-1844 - Rochester, Pre-1845 - Lincoln
Rural Deanery: Pre-1845 - Hertford, Post-1844 - Welwyn
Poor Law Union: Welwyn
Hundred: Broadwater
Province: Canterbury

Will also tell you when the PR's Start and when BT's Start.

[PeterR]

Not necessarily relevant for the 1841 census, but civil registration districts in Hertfordshire since 1837 might help. The page for each Registration District lists its parishes.

[davidm_uk]

Tim, thanks very much for that link, it looks like that will give me the information I want! It's now bookmarked.

Peter, thanks, I was aware of GENUKI and use it quite a lot when finding which places were in which registration districts and counties, and when they changed over the course of time.

[Bonzo]

That is an interesting site Tim and thanks for the link as well.

[AdrianBruce]

Though the caveat is that David asked for census parishes and the LDS maps - so far as I know - are based on ecclesiastical parishes. But what the difference is in practice, I really don't know, other than that Mr Murphy will no doubt contrive to stick his oar into just the wrong place. Certainly the censuses were driven, if I recall correctly, by a desire to analyse things slightly more logically - if an ecclesiastical parish spans two counties (whatever they are!) then it may be that the census parishes split at the county boundary. Maybe.....

At least you can read the descriptions in the 1841 books to try and understand what went on.

[TimTreeby]

For further reading see http://www.gazetteer.org.uk/notes.php#section4.3 especially section 4.3.2 which explains how Registration Districts were set up and how they were used in conjunction with Census taking.

[davidm_uk]

In this particular instance the important thing for me is to be able locate the parish names that Ancestry lists when (for example) you navigate to the 1841 England Census search screen, then on the right you have the option to "Browse this collection". Select a county and you can then select from a list of Civil Parishes (and then enumeration district) to browse the image collection for that place. With the map I can now see what parishes to look at in the area where an ancestor possibly lived.

Particulary for smallish villages/parishes, and the older census returns, I've often found people via this "browse all" approach that Ancestry's search didn't find, either through mistransciption or just missed.

I've now got a set of folders on the PC with the images of the census pages for those places of interest to me, so that I can return to them at any time. In the initial browsing of them to look for one person or family I've often come across names where I've thought to myself "oh that seems familiar, must come back and follow that up".

[jmurphy]

Apologies for the late reply, but I know for US Census records some maps are available at the US National Archives. Might TNA have similar documents for the census? If not, could there be useful data at Histpop.org -- the instructions, or statistics generated from the 1841 Census?