WHITEHOUSE FAMILY HISTORY CENTRE
1. INTRODUCTION
This document explains and provides links to the WFHC's sortable indexed transcripts of Whitehouses in the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses of England & Wales, drafts for the corresponding Scottish censuses and the 1891 census of Cannock, Staffordshire. The files are in MS Excel as an index, arranged by surname, forename(s) and age. With a few exceptions, the whole household has been transcribed wherever a Whitehouse has been found. Thus, the files can be downloaded and sorted to display the household, along with the address and WFHC reference number. An ability to sort the files is absolutely essential and an explanation of how to sort in Excel is given at the end of this document.
A unique feature of these files is that they are annotated (against the head of household only) with the reference numbers of WFHC correspondents' genealogies. These references are used to put those with related genealogies in touch with each other.
The name Whitehouse is found predominantly in the West Midlands, which is defined here as the counties of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. Coverage is theoretically complete for the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses of England, Wales, Isle of Man and Channel Is., but the odd omission cannot be entirely ruled out.
Each of the 1841 - 1871 censuses is split into 2 files: E&W (England, Wales, Isle of Man & Channel Is); and SCT (Scotland). Together they contain nearly 35,000 lines of entry (names). The E&W files are of a size within the range 1.36 to 2.1 MB and print out at more than 150 pages of portrait A4.
Some of these files require further checking, but in general they are better than existing on-line databases for finding Whitehouses. None of them is complete as to the WFHC reference numbers. Consequently, the files will be updated from time to time and the updates can be distinguished by the yymmdd date appearing in the file name. Because the files become out of date, it would be appreciated if downloaders would not circulate them to others, but just provide a link to the website so that the latest version is consulted.
Researchers who have failed to find their Whitehouse ancestor in one of the above censuses using other indexes are recommended to try the files here. They contain many Whitehouses that have been misindexed elsewhere.
2. LINKS IN BRIEF
1841 Census
1.36 MB, 7824 lines of entry, 153 pp
32 kB, 82 lines of entry, 3 pp
This 10-page Excel file shows the towns and places corresponding to West Midlands Piece (HO 107/....) numbers.
1851 Census
1.51 MB, 7918 lines of entry, 162 pp
39 kB, 122 lines of entry, 4 pp
1861 Census
1.67 MB, 8729 lines of entry, 186 pp
34 kB, 86 lines of entry, 6 pp
This one-page Word file shows the Registration Districts corresponding to West Midlands Piece (RG9/….) numbers.
1871 Census
2.1 MB, 10465 lines of entry, 233 pp
37kB, 102 lines of entry, 3 pp
REL CODES 070924.xls provides a key to the abbreviations used for head of household, wife, son, daughter etc. This document also includes relationships to the testator or intestate deceased for the purposes of grants of probate and letters of administration.
22 kB, 46 lines of entry, 1 page
CHAPMAN CTY CODES 030620.xls shows the well-known 3-letter county abbreviations in common use in genealogical databases. The modern version is used here.
22 kB, 1 page
COUNTRY CODES 030620.xls gives the internationally recognised 2-letter abbreviations of the larger countries.
17 kB, 1 page
TRANS RULES 070331.doc gives even fuller explanation than here about census transcription, being a document intended mostly for myself, to ensure consistency.
152 kB, 11 pages (Word)
3. CURRENT SCOPE OF THE FILES
1841 census
England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
West Midlands has been obtained partly by trawling (reading through a film), a particularly unreliable method. All parts which were trawled have been checked against the "British Origins" index. A project to extend this check to the other parts of the West Midlands is in progress. All other areas have been produced by using the "British Origins" and "Ancestry" indexes.
Scotland
This is in draft form, being based on the Ancestry index plus a few "trawlings". Until it is checked against the original records, that is to say images of the census returns, it should be treated with extreme caution.
1851 census
England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
West Midlands has been compiled from or checked against the LDS (Warwickshire), Friend (Worcestershire) and BMSGH (Staffordshire) indexes. It is therefore likely to be highly complete. It covers National Archives pieces HO 107/1999 to 2075. London, defined as The National Archives pieces HO 107/1466 to 1591 plus all of 1768 (West Ham RD), has been covered by local indexes. All other areas have been compiled mainly from published paper or microfiche name indexes, but some counties have never been indexed fully in this way. The gaps have been filled with the aid of the "Ancestry" indexes.
Scotland
This has been compiled in draft form as follows. In phase 1, the counties covered were Argyllshire, Ayrshire, Dumfriesshire (no entries), Dunbartonshire, Kirkcudbrightshire (no entries), Lanarkshire (including Glasgow), Renfrewshire and Wigtownshire (no entries). These were transcribed from films, but have not been checked. In phase 2, the Ancestry index was used to supplement the phase 1 entries and extend the area of coverage to the whole country, but without any checking against the original records.
1861 census
England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
West Midlands has been derived by a combination of trawling, paper name indexes and the "Ancestry" indexes. All three counties (Staffs, Warwicks, Worcs) have been checked for completeness against the "Ancestry" and "Findmypast" indexes. A quality control project to check all the entries in Staffs, Worcs and rural Warwicks has been completed. This was done by a Whit* search in “Ancestry” (where * = any termination). All other areas have been completed, using the "Ancestry" and "Findmypast" indexes.
Scotland
This has been compiled in draft form from the “Ancestry” index. None of the entries has been checked against the original records.
1871 census
England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man
All areas have been searched in both the “Ancestry” and “British Origins” indexes. Some paper indexes have also been used in the West Midlands.
Scotland
This has been compiled in draft form from the “Ancestry” index, supplemented by guesses to correct obviously incorrect transcriptions. None of the entries has been checked against the original records. One of them was investigated, determined provisionally to relate to Whitecross, and omitted.
General note about accuracy
It is impossible to guarantee that the sortable indexed transcripts on this website are free from errors and omissions. As regards omissions, none of the methods used to compile these transcripts is likely to be perfect. Paper and microfiche name indexes are generally the best, but omissions have been found in a few. Of the major on-line indexes, those of "Ancestry" are simply appalling. Whitehouse has been found indexed as Whitchoun, Whitchouse, Whitchurch, Whitcomb, Whitehair, Whitehaire, Whiteham, Whitehorse, Whitehorn, Whitehorne, Whitehead, Whitelaw, Whitham and even White (RG10/3139 FO 80), Whitbourn (RG 9/438 FO 154), Whitcham (RG10/3134 FO 16), Whitchana (HO 107/983/6 FO 18), Whitchann (HO 107/2020 FO 143), Whitchcrass (HO 107/996/4 FO 12), Whitchcuse (RG10/147 FO 5), Whitcher (RG9/2131 FO 68; HO 107/997/1 FO 35), Whitchone (RG9/2146 FO 32), Whitchonse (HO 107/983/6 FO 6), Whitchoak (RG10/3178 FO 129), Whitchont (HO 107/993/17 FO 4), Whitchover (HO 107/983/6 FO 8), Whitchowe (RG10/3203 FO 4), Whitdrona (RG10/3071 FO 108), Whiteford (RG10/3092 FO 40), Whitebook (RG10/3479 FO 61), Whitehaiir (with the double i: HO 107/997/2 FO 33), Whitehavse (RG10/3143 FO 61), Whitehine (HO 107/997/2 FO 38), Whitehone (RG9/ 2131 FO 20), Whitehorue (RG9/2177 FO 75), Whitelevuse (RG10/3189 FO 62) and Whitetsore (RG10/3124 FO 124). To counter this, some searches have been made using Whit*, where * is a wild card, denoting any letter or letters. However, even this tedious technique is not enough, for the name has been rendered by "Ancestry" as Mitchem (RG9/2029 FO 106), Mitchouse (HO 107/2362 FO 103), Warland (RG9/2131 FO 21) Wartchow (RG10/226 FO 44), Warthanse (HO 107/2315 FO 245), Waterhouse (RG9/2029 FO 20), Wheelhouse (RG10/3156 FO 141; HO 107/2362 FO 119), Whelehan (RG9/2056 FO 41 & RG10/5464 FO 31), Whetchon (RG9/2131 FO 62), Whetchow (RG9/2063 FO 116), Whetham (RG9/2121 FO 44 & 2032 FO 91), Whetstone (RG9/2032 FO 49, Whikhouse ( RG10/1300 FO 61), Wickhouse (RG10/3082 FO 56), Witcham (RG9/2033 FO 110) and Witchouse (RG9/2033 FO 100). Slips of the eye produced Hutchinson (RG10/3155 FO 73) and Walker (RG10/2950 FO 55), but the most bizarre mis-readings so far are Atutchcus (RG10/3078 FO 3), White Mouse - two words (RG10/2854 FO 101), White Snape - also two words (RG10/5243 FO 86) and McWhitehouse (RG10/1477 FO 23). Nearly as amusing are Ritehouse for the well known lawyer Thomas Mott Whitehouse (RG10/2933 FO 47), Vohitehons (RG10/2939 FO 134), Silutense (RG9/2159 FO 30) and Ukikhouse (RG10/2941 FO 62). This is such a shame, as ”Ancestry” has a very good search interface and wonderfully clear images.
Alas, the "Findmypast" index also contains many errors.
"British Origins" is vastly better than either, but not entirely error-free.
Be warned also that not all entries indexed as Whitehouse are correct. For example, the "Whitehouse" on the CD-ROM for Montgomery (1851) turned out to be Whitticase. "Albert Whitehouse" in the Ancestry index to the 1861 census of West Bromwich (RG9/2029 Folio 211) is in fact Aaron Harrison ! Henry Handley (RG10/3147 Folio 50) is mysteriously indexed by British Origins as a Whitehouse.
4. DETAILED EXPLANATIONS
GENERAL COMMENTS
Data entry throughout
These census transcripts are intended to include every normal household containing at least one Whitehouse (or variant name). Each transcript includes the whole entry of the household, even if the only Whitehouse is a servant. However, where the name appears in an institution, e.g. workhouse, prison, asylum, school, hotel, lodging house or boarding establishment, only the Whitehouse is normally listed, along with the "household number" (see below).
Those having Whitehouse as a forename have been included, even where the surname Whitehouse does not appear in the entry.
Generally, the aim has been to reach a compromise between faithfulness to the original and a document which can be searched fairly easily, accommodated comfortably on A4 paper and printed out at reasonable cost.
In general, question marks (query signs) to denote a doubtful interpretation have been used sparingly, but some were inevitable. A single space has been left between the end of the item and the question mark.
Round brackets, sometimes left open, are reproduced as in the census return. Square brackets are used for remarks that do not appear in the original, e.g. "[sic]", "[Illegible]".
Where the item does not make good sense or reads oddly, "[sic]" appears after it, with one space between the word and "[sic]". "Sic" is Latin for "thus" and the conventional way of saying: "I know it doesn't make sense or seems odd, but this is what the original says." Use of this has been sparing, to avoid nuisance in searching. Lately, I have used it increasingly in relation to the place of birth, where the literal transcription is felt to be wrong.
In an attempt to achieve consistent data entry, I have produced a "bible" (see TRANS RULES file, link above), which shows in great detail the rules that I have tried to follow.
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS FOR THE 1851, 1861 & 1871 CENSUS
SURNAME (Column A)
The surname sticks faithfully to the original. If the name appearing is not WHITEHOUSE, but, say, WHITEHOUS, it is shown in the Surname column as WHITEHOUSE, but noted under "Address & Notes" as a variant. This expedient has been adopted to ensure that the surname always sorts properly. Where there is a doubt about whether the surname is WHITEHOUSE, it has been included. In several instances, other years of the census have been consulted.
In a few cases, the surname is formally not stated, the enumerator having apparently failed to insert "do" (ditto).
Because "No name stated" is so very unhelpful, the ditto has been inferred where the context justifies it.
FORENAME(S) (Column B)
All forenames are given faithfully, so all the "William H" and "Wm" entries will appear after the "William" ones. Ingenuity might have to be displayed to pick up abbreviations and deviant spellings. However, it is not necessary to specify "Wm.", with the full stop (period) as all full stops have been eliminated from the document.
"Joseph" is frequently shortened to "Jos" or "Josh", while "Thomas" can be "Tho", "Thos", "Ths" or even "Thoms". As mentioned above, no general attempt has been made to indicate when the final letter of the name is raised. In a few instances, a note has been added. These include "Josh", where a note has been entered as to whether the final 'h' is raised, indicating Joseph, or level, in which case the name might be either Joshua or Joseph.
One particular problem forename is "Louisa". This baffled many enumerators and resulted in many phonetic spellings such as Leweser and Luizer, as well as the misspelling "Lousia".
REL = Relationship to Head of Household (Column C)
The code adopted (see the link above) is similar to that used by the late A.F.Friend (and many other census indexers). A single code has been adopted for both census and probate purposes.
Relationship to the head of household has been interpreted in those cases where it is clear that the literal designation cannot be correct, e.g. where a visitor's son appears simply as "son", this has been changed to "visitor's son" (VR's SO in the code used).
In some instances, there is no "Head" given. This could be because the person who is regarded as "Head" is away from home and the enumerator has not nominated another person in his or her place. Alternatively, a person in the preceding entry might have been regarded as the "Head". In this transcript, the census return has been followed faithfully.
CON = Marital Condition (Column D)
The marital status has been entered faithfully, except that the code makes no distinction between widow and widower. Where the entry says "Single", the letter S has been used. Quite often, the enumerator has not listed a wife as married. Probably this was oversight, but blanks have been preserved as blanks, in case they might have some significance in some entries.
AGE (Column E)
The transcripts do not allot separate male and female columns, but where initials only are given or the forename is unclear or unusual, "[Male]" or "[Female]" has been added. Ages of less than a year, in days (d), weeks (w) or months (m), are treated as 0 (zero), so that they will sort better. The age given appears in "Address & Notes". Similarly, ages in half years and ages of 12 months upwards have been re-expressed as the age in years on the last birthday and a note added to "Address & Notes".
Because Excel mis-sorts numbers with any textual matter following them, question marks, alternatives and "[sic]" comments do not appear in the age column. See "Address & Notes".
OCCUPATION (Column F)
This has been entered faithfully, except that the first word of the entry and every noun and adjectival noun contained in it begins with a capital letter. This is to help in searching occupations and make data entry easier.
Where the occupation has been given as "Widow", "Visitor" etc., this information has been transferred to the correct column and the occupation column left blank.
BIRTH CTY (Column G)
Chapman county codes have been used for counties of the United Kingdom and Ireland. For foreign countries, other than Ireland (IRL), the International Standards' Organisation's two letter codes have been adopted, e.g. Netherlands = NL. See the links to keys provided in Section 4 above.
BIRTHPLACE (Column H)
The policy has been to keep faithfully to the original. Consequently, because of the different spellings and abbreviations, searching under this heading might need care on occasions. For example, Birmingham might appear in full or as "Birm", "Birmg", "Birmm", "Bham" or even "Bm".
PC = Piece (Column I)
This refers to the number given by the National Archives to a census district and is consequently the number of their microfilm. The prefix HO 107/… (1841 and 1851), RG9/… (1861) or RG/10… (1871) has been omitted for brevity.
FO = Folio (Column J)
The Folio number is that appearing as a large, thick number at the top right-hand corner of every other page. It should not be confused with the page number, which is the much smaller one appearing at the top centre of every page. The folio consists of the page on which this number appears and the one AFTER it. The convention in the WFHC transcripts is to use the folio number of the first entry of the household. If the enumeration continues onto a new folio, that is disregarded and the first number used throughout the household. Quite often, folio numbers given here differ from those of other indexes. This is because (a) occasionally, the other indexes are wrong, a common mistake being to attribute the folio number to the page BEFORE the one on which it appears; or (b) they use a different convention, e.g. if a household spills over onto a new folio at entry No. 3, to record entries 1 & 2 as belonging to the first folio number and entries 3 onwards to the second folio number.
The above procedure is followed even for institutions such as prisons, workhouses, schools and lodging houses. Thus, the folio at which the first page of names in the institution begins is entered in the FO column. The folio at which the Whitehouse entry appears and the page number are added in "Address & Notes".
Where an additional folio has been inserted in the piece with an "A" number, such as "60A", the "A" has been omitted from this column, to prevent problems in searching (because the suffix "A" causes the folio number to be shunted to the end, after the highest normal number). A note appears under "Address & Notes" that the folio number is 60A.
Scottish census returns are not foliated, so the references are to enumeration district, page and schedule number.
The Parish or District numbers applicable to the Old Parochial Registers have been used for identification purposes, appearing under the heading “DIST”. The inserted column “SD” immediately following “DIST” refers to the sub-district.
SCH = Schedule Number (Column K)
The Schedule number is the number given by the enumerator to an entry for an individual household. Enumerators had different ideas about what constitutes a household. For example, a group of lodgers might be considered to be a household and none of them designated "Head". The policy here has been to adhere faithfully to the enumerator's schedules and not to merge entries from neighbouring schedule numbers or to separate entries within a schedule number, unless there is an obvious error in numbering.
For example, if schedule 132 follows 130, but it appears that 130 contains two households, the second one has been numbered 131 in the WFHC transcript.
Schedule numbers followed by "A" have been treated in the same way as for Folio numbers - see above.
HN = Household Number (Column L)
This is the number used to denote the order of the individual entries within a household, so that the original order can be retained in the transcript if desired. The numbers will normally be consecutive, starting with 1. However, where the WHITEHOUSE is found in an institution, it is not practical to list all the entries within the institution, as there are too many. Accordingly, the number of entries has been counted and the WHITEHOUSE given his or her correct number in the order. Thus, the transcript might record a single name, WHITEHOUSE, John, with, for example, HN = 34 and no preceding entries. The folio number given in the column FO is that of the beginning of the institution. To help to locate the WHITEHOUSE entry within an institution, the folio and page number where he appears are given in "Address & Notes".
ADDRESS & NOTES (Column M)
The policy here has been to use the correct spelling of the address, whenever this is known to me or obvious, ignoring the enumerator's spelling. Of course, in my ignorance, some road names might not be correctly spelt.
The address given is the road name and, where given by the enumerator, house number, followed by a colon, single space and then the town name. Wards and parishes have been mostly omitted, as they are frequently omitted by enumerators and when available are often confusing. Generally, addresses which refer to particular buildings or to courts have been edited to place them before the name of the street.
Street names are reproduced as in the entry, except that the commoner suffix designations have been abbreviated, e.g. "Street" to "St". Town names have been changed where necessary to give the correct spelling. However, some abbreviation of town names has been needed to meet space requirements, e.g. Birmingham to B'ham, West Bromwich to W Brom, Great Wyrley to Gt Wyrley and Wolverhampton to W'hampton. The general policy has been to provide only one town name, even when the "town" is a small village, in order to save space. Where it is thought that there could be a problem for some readers in identifying the "town", because it is a hamlet or a small locality, the name of the associated town has been included as well, e.g. as in "Village: Blackheath: Rowley Regis".
An address is shown only for the first member of each household. Consequently, to find the address of a second or subsequent member, call up the whole household by sorting first by Household Number alone, then sorting again by Piece, Folio and Schedule.
The disabilities noted by the enumerator have been included in the Address & Notes column in capitals, e.g. "DEAF".
WFHC REF (Column N)
Each genealogy registered with the WFHC is given a number. This column is incomplete at present. The reference is given only in the first row of each household. Remember also that the first person in a household is not necessarily a Whitehouse. It is strongly recommended in all cases to call up the whole household by sorting first by Household Number alone, then sorting again by Piece, Folio and Schedule.
The WFHC reference is used to put correspondents with related genealogies in touch with one another.
EXPLANATION OF COLUMNS FOR 1841 CENSUS
The arrangement of the transcript is as similar as possible to that for the 1851 census, but with the following alterations. Obviously, columns of the 1851 census not appearing in the 1841 census (REL, CON, BIRTHPLACE) were omitted and BTH CTY has changed to BORN SAME CTY ?.
As most readers know, the 1841 census does not give exact places of birth. The "BORN SAME CTY ?" column in this transcript contains the answers Y = yes, N = no, SCT= Scotland, IRL = Ireland, FOR = foreign parts. In the original, one letter abbreviations were used, making it difficult to tell "S" (Scotland) from "I" (Ireland), considering that "I" often has a tail at the bottom and a flourish at the top of the character. In the Channel Islands entries, Y = born on the Island, N = born on another of the Channel Islands, ENG = England and the other abbreviations are as above.
The 1841 census rarely contains schedule numbers, so this column has also disappeared. Column G (BK = Book No.) gives the book number within each piece. The more modern microfilms now have this added to the piece number alongside the pages. For example, in the National Archives, Family Records Centre's film, Book 1 of Piece 1196 (Dudley) is shown as HO 107/1196/1. Folio numbers in the 1841 census films do not run continuously right through the piece. Instead, they begin again at Folio 1 for every book. The Folio No. (FO) is therefore not enough on its own to identify an entry. The Piece (PC), Book (BK) and Folio (FO) numbers are needed. However, films available in other places do not necessarily have Book or Folio numbers. To help readers using these, the transcript also provides Enumeration District (ED) and Page (P) numbers. In straightforward Pieces, such as Dudley, there are two or three Enumeration Districts within every Book and they are numbered consecutively throughout the Piece. For example, Book 1 consists of EDs 1 and 2, Book 2 EDs 3 and 4, the Piece ending with Book 17 (EDs 35 - 37) and Book 18 (Workhouse ED). By contrast, some Pieces are far from simple, as they contain returns from different Registration Districts. Take, for example, rural Worcestershire in HO 107/1197. Here there are no less than five EDs each numbered "4" ! The explanation is that they fall within the Registration Districts of Bromsgrove, Droitwich, Kidderminster, Pershore and Kings Norton and can be found in Books 6, 11, 15, 16 and 21. So, to refer just to Piece 1197, ED4, page 5, for example, would be unhelpful: the Book number needs to be given as well.
In the 1841 census, each enumerated item is supposedly one dwelling, marked off by a double diagonal line at the end of the entry. A single diagonal line indicates a new family within the same dwelling. Thus, one frequently finds one of these single lines separating a family from a lodger or servant. Sometimes, it separates related people, such as father and son. I have transcribed the whole entry for the house, regardless of whether there is a "family divider" line or not. Originally, I had intended to omit these "family divider" lines, but in the end I introduced a new column for them, at the left-hand side. An oblique stroke in this column on the same line as a name indicates that the new family begins with that name. Thus "/ BROWN James" after several rows of Whitehouses means that James Brown is the first member of another family within the same house.
The whole enumerated house is treated as one household and extracted if there is a Whitehouse anywhere within it. The "household" numbering (HN) in column L is more correctly the enumerated item or dwelling numbering, as it runs through the whole entry to the end, marked by the double diagonal line.
In the 1841 census, the enumerators were supposed to use "m" (lower case) to represent "maker" and "M" (upper case) to denote manufacturer. I have tried to follow the census literally and have used upper and lower case "M" and "m". In practice, it has been difficult often to tell which case was intended and anyway the distinction is probably unreliable and not particularly helpful.
Because there are no schedule numbers for the 1841 census, one cannot tell from a normal type of transcript whether two enumerated items or dwellings are adjacent. To combat this, a column M (the column heading "O" = vicinity order) has been included. Here, arbitrary letters, A, B, C… show the order of dwellings which are on the same or the following page. For example, suppose there are three Whitehouse dwellings on consecutive pages, one on each page. Say that they are headed by John Whitehouse, William Whitehouse and James Smith (who employs Mary Ann Whitehouse as a servant). Suppose that John appears near the foot of one page, the next dwelling does not contain any Whitehouse and then William Whitehouse's family follow on the next page. John's is given the letter "A" and William's "C" (indicating that there is the non-Whitehouse item "B" between them). Because there is a third Whitehouse entry, on the third page, this is included in the vicinity sequence. This time, there are seven dwellings in between. William's entry retains the letter "C", the seven in between are D, E, F, G, H, I and J, so James Smith's entry on the third page bears the letter "K".
The main use of the vicinity order is to determine adjacency, which might indicate a family relationship. Another use is to point up high densities of the name in a particular area, which would lead one to be cautious in assuming that adjacent entries are related. A third use is to enable the transcript to be sorted in the correct order, when two entries are on the same page.
THE 1891 CENSUS OF CANNOCK
The 1891 census differs from the 1851 - 1881 censuses in that it has a column to show the number of rooms occupied if less than 5 and three columns to show employment status. The indexed transcript here shows the number of rooms in the address column as 3R, 4R etc. The three employment columns in the returns are 12 = employer, 13 = employee and 14 = neither of these, the last-mentioned being intended to show self-employment in a one-man business. In this indexed transcript, the relevant number, 12, 13 or 14, has been added in the occupation column.
HOW TO SORT IN EXCEL
Any number of columns can be sorted in Excel. I'm no computer expert and couldn't speak for other software.
The standard way of sorting works like this. First select what you want to sort. Usually, you will click on the very top left square (above Row 1 and to the left of Column A) to select the whole document. Then go to Data and Sort. You are then invited to sort three columns, first by (scroll down the menu in the box), then by (scroll down the menu in the box), then by (scroll down the menu in the box). It's best to click the circle "My list has a header row", as this will bring the column headings into the menu boxes and avoid confusion.
The file is normally put onto the website already sorted by surname, forename(s) and age. To view the household (and thus find the address and WFHC correspondent number), it is necessary to re-sort the file into "household order". Excel allows you to sort only three columns in any one operation. However, it's a well kept secret that any number of columns can be sorted, with a little patience. The principle is to sort the columns in ascending order of rank. In this instance, two sorting operations are needed. Do the first sorting operation by household number (HN) alone. Carry out a second sort by piece (PC), then folio (FO), then schedule (SCH). The result will be a sort by (1) piece, (2) folio, (3) schedule number and (4) household number - in other words, "household order".
Sorting the 1841 census is a little more tricky. This is because the last column, vicinity order (O), is of higher rank than household number (HN) and the column of lowest rank must always be sorted in the first operation. When applying the above principle, therefore, one has to reverse these two columns mentally. Do the first sorting operation by household number (HN) alone, as before. Secondly, sort by enumeration district (ED), page number (P) and vicinity order (O). Thirdly, sort by piece (PC), book (BK), folio (FO). Thus, the seven columns will have been sorted in their correct ranking, giving "household order".
It’s sensible to make yourself an extra copy of the file, keeping one in the order of surname, forenames, age and the other in household order.
Good hunting,
Keith