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Every census return now has a modern archive reference, based on the government department that had responsibility for organizing the census at the time it was carried out. The original returns are now held at The National Archives at Kew, and no matter where you are viewing the returns – at TNA, a county archive or online – the archive references form an important part of either finding the correct return or creating your own referencing system when you download information from the Internet into your own files. Wherever archive references appear in this book, they will be accompanied by an explanation of what they mean, and how you should use them in your notes or files. Further information about locating census returns follows shortly.

The 1841 census had a different form of organization and referencing than later censuses and was not based simply on registration districts. It was administered by the Home Office, and has been given TNA series classification HO 107. Individual parishes in each county were grouped together into hundreds, and the census returns were subsequently sorted by county on an alphabetical basis, then by hundred, and lastly by parish. These hundreds were given unique piece numbers, which you can see on the scanned reference slip that appears alongside each census image, either online or on the relevant microfilm.

Each enumeration district was grouped together to form books. Each book would contain approximately five or six enumeration districts and would also have a unique number, given after the piece number on the reference slip. The books themselves would be broken down further, by folio number and individual page number. Folio numbers were stamped on every other page before the returns were microfilmed. Page numbers were printed on the original returns along with the columns.

Thus an example of an 1841 census reference would be HO 107/910/2 whereby HO 107 would signify the 1841 census, 910 would be the piece number (in this case Condover hundred in Shropshire) and 2 the book number. The next relevant number would be the folio number and lastly the page number. However, the latter two would not be on the reference slip itself.