From the Dumfriesshire Freecen co-ordinator...
I am pleased to announce that the first parishes of the Dumfriesshire 1841 Free Census Project are now available on-line. These first parishes are:
Dalton, Halfmorton, Hoddam, and Middlebie, and more are on the way.
They can be found at
www.freecen.org.uk . Simply follow the link to Search the Database (on the left side of the screen). If you want to find out what other records are on this database, click on Database Coverage or Recent Additions.
You can search by Surname, Forename, Age (or Birth Year), Sex, Occupation, and Birth County, or any combination of these. (The other search parameters shown are not recorded in the 1841 census). These searches can be specific to one parish (Census Place), or to an entire county (Census County). Be sure to put in the year 1841 when searching Dumfriesshire, since no other years have been transcribed (yet) for this County. Wild cards (* and _) are possible to use, but be aware that the more general a search is, the longer it will take, and if it takes too long it might "time out". The database is also more accessible during off-peak hours.
It is possible to view an entire household, and also households nearby. Just click on the appropriate buttons. If you have no relatives in these parishes, you can see what the database looks like by going to the search page, clicking on 1841, choosing one of the parishes, and entering a common forename (such as John or Mary), or a profession (such as
Schoolmaster or Weaver). A list of all those with this forename or profession will show on the screen. You can look at the household by clicking the button at the right of the name, and then look at the previous/next households in the district.
Names, ages, genders, etc., have been transcribed as shown in the census, including abbreviations. Thus, it might be useful to search for "Marg" when looking for "Margaret", since this name can be spelled "Margret", "Margart", "Margart", etc. Also, if "Campbell" is spelled "Camble" by the enumerator, that is how it is entered in the database.
To see the current status of the project as a whole, go to
www.rootsweb.com/~sctdfsfc .
Each piece has been transcribed, then proofread twice, and is as accurate as we can make it. But being a transcription there will be errors in the transcription that were not spotted in the proofreading.
Happy searching,
Thomas Daly
Dumfriesshire Coordinator
FreeCEN
Pam
