NEW! 1841 and 1851 census finds of Romany, Traveller, Fairground and Circus people
It’s very rare to discover Travelling people enumerated in the 1841 and 1851 censuses of Britain. This is because in those two years enumerators were instructed only to record the number of people they found who were not living in houses, not their personal details.
But it’s now becoming clear that a good number of enumerators went beyond their brief and did indeed interview individuals who were living in the open air, vans, tents, barns and sheds and recorded their names, ages, birthplaces, occupations and so on in full.
Such entries are often crossed through by the census administrators but they are usually still legible. They have therefore been digitised, indexed and transcribed in the same way as all other census entries, even though they are effectively “errors” on the part of those original enumerators.
The RTFHS is now collecting 1841 and 1851 census finds of this kind and will start to list them here from early March 2026 onwards. Please look out for updates on this soon in the RTFHS journal Romany Routes, on this website and on the RTFHS Facebook page.
