Tameside Family History

1801 was the year for the first official government census and these have taken place at ten year intervals since that date. Various parish and ecclesiastical enumerations had take place before this date, mainly in connection with the payment of tithes. Here is an example of an enumeration in 1775 for Ashton-under-Lyne Parish, taken from Aikin's book "Forty Miles around Manchester" published in 1795.

1801 - 1831 Census Returns

The first four censuses were merely headcounts and in general provide nothing of any use to genealogists. Questionnaires were sent to overseers of the poor and clergy to provide the Government with a set of simple raw statistics:

After the figures had been extracted the original returns were usually destroyed.

The results were published in Parliamentary papers. The results for the Cheshire side of Tameside were split into the various townships eg, Godley, Matley, Mottram, Newton, Staley and Werneth, but the Ashton-under-Lyne statistics on the Lancashire side were not split.

In 1801 the population of Ashton-under-Lyne was 15,632, of whom 271 were engaged in some form of agriculture and there were 127 empty houses.

in 1801 Dukinfield had 308 houses, 7 uninhabited houses and a population of 843 males, 893 females and 78 people employed in agriculture. Haughton had a population of 1139, Droylsden 1532 and Matley 250.

Part of the 1811 Census for what appear to be the Knott Lanes and Hartshead divisions of Ashton Parish has survived. This includes part of Ashton Town, Heyrod and Luzley, Mossley, Lees, and what seems to be most of Stalybridge. I have transcribed these onto this webpage. Please check my INDEX PAGE for details.

1841 Census

The 1841 Census is first of any real use to family historians, but unfortunately does not show family relationships or place of birth. Households were only obliged to state whether they were born in or out of the county. This is particularly annoying since Tameside straddles the Lancashire/Cheshire border. Enumerators were also allowed to round down the age of all adults to the nearest multiple of five, although some ignored this and entered the actual age. This census is available to view on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library, and is indexed by street only.

1851 Census

Now includes family relationships and place of birth, which is very helpful in trying to pinpoint pre Civil Registration birthplaces. Available to view on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library and is street and surname indexed.

The exception to this is a large part of Ashton-under-Lyne (see paragraph below) which was originally too poor to be filmed due to water damage. This has been street and surname indexed, where possible, by volunteers, the results of which are available on microfiche at Tameside Local Studies Library, but there are still large gaps in the information, even though the volunteers did a marvellous job at the time.

Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society has had a team, under the direction of Ray Hulley, working at the Public Record Office in London for several years now trying various methods to recapture as much information as possible for this part of Ashton and others in Manchester that were also damaged. Ray was fairly recently given permission to use UV light and the capture rate increased dramatically. The unfilmed census (National Archives reference HO 107/2233) covers the following areas - Knott Lanes sub-district together with Ashton Town, Portland and Market Wards. Ninety six percent of the 18,801 population in the above districts has now been recovered from the damaged returns. These have been published on a CD Rom available to purchase from the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society, price 9.95 Sterling, reference number 1631.click here for more details

Visit Ray Hulley's website for details for details of the addresses which still are missing and unrecoverable.

1861 Census

Also available to view on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library. Street Indexed. A surname index and transcript exists for Denton and Haughton only. Also a surname index for Hyde and part of Ashton.

1871 Census

Also available to view on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library. Street indexed. Surname indexes exist for Ashton (excluding Hurst), Audenshaw, Droylsden and Clayton.

Antony Lambert has transcribed a large part of Hurst and the surrounding area onto his website, including those living at the Barracks and Workhouse on Census night 1871. click here for more details.

1881 Census

Also available to view on CD Rom and microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library. Street indexed. Surname indexed for the whole of England (compiled by the Mormons)

The 1881 Census is also available to search free on-line via the Family Search.org website.

1891 Census

Also available to view on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library. Street indexed. Surname indexed for Denton; parts of Ashton, Dukinfield, Mossley, most of Hyde, Newton (Flowery Field) and Stalybridge.

The 1901 Census

The 1901 Census for the Tameside area is also available on microfilm at Tameside Local Studies Library, although at the moment this is indexed by street name only.

New Acquisitions of Census on CD Rom at Tameside Local Studies Library

Cheshire - 1851 and 1871 - all surname indexed by the Family History Society of Cheshire.

Lancashire - 1861, 1871, 1891**, 1901 - **Census Index Version 3 (not yet fully complete). The 1891 Census for Manchester, Bolton and Salford have all been indexed by Manchester & Lancashire FHS.

Yorkshire - 1861, 1871, 1891**, 1901 - **Census Index Version 3 (not yet fully complete).

Derbyshire - 1891.

Census Returns to Purchase on CD Rom

Various organisations now publish copies of original census data on CD:

I have not used any of these products myself, and some of them seem rather pricey, especially when researching in Tameside and facing the possibility of ordering sets for Lancashire and Cheshire.

Ancestry.co.uk

Increasingly the way forward seems to be via Ancestry.co.uk. I was pretty much against subscription websites at first, but there are now three levels of subscription; Pay per View, Quarterly and Annual. All census records 1841-1901 are now searchable on-line. Ancestry also has two versions of the Civil Registration indexes free to search on-line. Excellent website if you can afford the subscriptions - probably the best there is apart from Cheshire BMD.

Find My Past.com

The whole of the1841, 1861, 1871 and 1891 Censuses are now searchable on-line. This can be very useful when used in conjunction with Ancestry above. I haven't been able to decide, as yet, which has the most accurate transcriptions

The Genealogist

S & N Genealogy's on-line database now has the 1841 -1891 and nearly complete 1901. You can now buy all-in subscritpions which also includes bmd.co.uk, and they are constantly adding new census indexes.

British Origins

Now has the 1841 and 1861 census and the 1871 for most of the larger counties including Lancashire and chehshire. This is also a subscription only website and has a whole collection of lesser known databases

Some Pitfalls when using Census Returns.

Age Differences - Remember that your ancestors were human and could lie about their age, especially when one member of a couple was much older than the other, and they had to continue this subterfuge on census night. Sometimes people born before civil registration only had a vague idea of when they were born or how old they were. Remember that the information was only as good as the person giving it to the census enumerator, and that on the 1841 census, the enumerator could round the age down by as much as 4 years.

Birth Places - You might find that your ancestor gave three separate places on separate census returns. They might give the name of the first place they remember living, the nearest big town or the name of the actual village or any name they thought the enumerator might be familiar with.

In the Town	553 houses	599 families	2859 inhabitants
In the Parish	941 houses	971 families	5097 inhabitants

Family History Research

Census Returns

Census Returns Pre 1841