1841 census - advice please

[Elwyn 1]

I’d like to search the 1841 census on Scotlandspeople to get all the inhabitants of the island of Handa, Sutherland that year. (There were around 60 people there at that time). I think the district it fell in was probably either Edrachillis or Durness. Can anyone tell me how to do such a search on Scotlandspeople?

[Russell]

Hi Elwyn

Using scotlandspeople for a search like that could prove rather expensive. I'm not sure which parish the isle came under but 5 parishes in Sutherland have been put on-line by FreeCen,rootsweb.com(/cgi/search.pl) If you are fortunate and Handa proves to be covered then it is a simple matter to move backwardsand forwards through the entries until you have looked at every entry. I was able to locate all my relatives in Cellardyke by this approach. Since transcribing the 1841 census is carried out by volunteers if Handa has not yet been transcribed you could always volunteer your services.that way you would learn a great deal about the islanders.
I'll keep my fingers crossed that your in luck.
Russell

[AndrewP]

Hi Elwyn,

On ScotlandsPeople, this can be done quite cheaply. In 1841, Handa was the whole of enumeration district 4 in Edrachillis parish (no.49). There were 65 people indexed in that district, falling onto three pages. The 1841 census is imaged as double pages on ScotlandsPeople, so that you have only two images to view to see all three pages. To get to these on their own, you can use advanced searching as follows:

• Go to 1841 census search on ScotlandsPeople and select Show Advanced.
• In the advanced search box, put in the following search criteria: rdno: 49 && enumdist: 004

This search will return all 65 index entries for that district. The first index page entries are all on image page 1 (census pages 1 and 2). View the first page. When done with that, select view page after and view that page. This way, for 11 credits, you can view the whole of the 1841 census for Handa Island.

By my count the 65 people comprised of 11 households and 6 surnames.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Elwyn 1]

Andrew,

I have tried following your advice. However when I do it, it produces a slightly different result to your prediction. It says 1701 matches and 69 pages of data. Can you review your guidance to see if there is something I am missing?

Elwyn

[AndrewP]

Hi Elwyn,

The 1701 results over 65 pages is for the whole of Eddrachillis Parish (rdno: 49), without restricting it to enumeration district 4 (enumdist: 004). Did you copy and paste the whole statement rdno: 49 && enumdist: 004 into the advanced search box, as shown below?

All the best,

Andrew

[Elwyn 1]

Hi Elwyn,

Did you copy and paste the whole statement rdno: 49 && enumdist: 004 into the advanced search box?

All the best,

Andrew

Yes I did. I copied it exactly. It didn't narrow the field in the way you are suggesting.

[AndrewP]

Yes I did. I copied it exactly. It didn't narrow the field in the way you are suggesting.

So it looks as in the picture above?
(possibly edited in as you were writing your reply)

Andrew

[WilmaM]

Freecen have transcribed all of Eddrachillis Parish for 1841, just asking for all the males brings up 814 results.

With a bit of patience and local knowledge I'm sure you could narrow down the Handa residents from that.

As it's name suggests it is FREE so could be a more economical route to take as Russell suggested.

[Hibee]

If you start from the 814 described above, and pick out Hector Falconer (who is the first entry on Handa), you can then use the "Next Household" button to call up all the Handa households in order.

Hibee

[LesleyB]

Hi all

I tried it out to see what happenend by copying and pasting the search criteria, and 65 results were returned. Knowing how picky databases can be, I just wonder if it is a matter of spacing.... if I fiddle about with it and search with:

rdno:49&& enumdist: 004 instead of
rdno:49 && enumdist: 004 (so just one space missing)

then I get "Your search found 199886 matches. (7996 pages)" !!

Got it - by using rdno: 49 &&enumdist: 004 (note no space between && and enumdist)
I get "Your search found 1701 matches. (69 pages) " which is what you got Elwyn.

If you copy & paste to preserve the spacing exactly as Andrew had it, the search will work.

Best wishes
Lesley