1831 Census Returns

1831 Census Returns

Unlike Great Britain, where detailed Census Enumerators' Returns are available from 1841, virtually none exist for Ireland before 1901. However, in county Londonderry we have a unique source which, as far as I know, is not available for any other county in Ireland - the 1831 Census Returns. Despite being referred to as census returns, they do not contain the detailed information on individuals that we find in the 1901 and 1911 Census Returns.

In fact the returns were produced as a Religious Census for use in the First Report of the Commission of Public Instruction (1834/35), thus the predominance of information on individual religions. The categories of Established Church, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian and other Protestant Dissenters are similar to the categories used in the 1766 Religious Census. Nevertheless, despite not being a full-blown census return, the 1831 Census Returns are a valuable source. If nothing else, they clearly demonstrate the limitations of the Tithe Applotment Books as a source for family names in the early part of the nineteenth century.

The returns are organised by barony, civil parish and townland. Click here to see copies of pages covering parts of some townlands in the baronies of Loughinsholin and Keenaght. These copies have been scanned from the microfilm version of this source. The original books are held in the National Archives in Dublin. In these pages you will see the kind of information that is given for each house.

The listing of households in the returns normally follow a geographical order which reflects the route that the enumerator took around a townland or street. Because of this, it is usually possible to match the names in the 1831 Census Returns with the c.1830 Tithe Books in rural areas and the c.1830 Townland Valuation in towns. Having done that you should then be able to match many of the 1831 names and locations with the 1858/59 Griffith's Printed [Tenement] Valuation and its accompanying maps. You can try this process for yourself in each of the locality studies listed in the right-hand menu. Here I have databased all of the information from the returns for each of the townlands and streets covered in these studies. Note that the order of names within these databases follow the order in the original document.

I have also databased the 1831 Census Returns for the entire county. Mainly, I used the microfilm copies of the census held in both PRONI [MIC/5A/6-9B] and the Local Studies Department in Ballymena Library. I also used a copy of the index of names and places in the 1831 Census Returns prepared some years ago.

I cannot guarantee that the names listed in the database are all correct. Certainly some are missing simply because of the fact that they were unreadable. [1] Others have undoubtedly been entered incorrectly by me. A look at the examples of two pages [referred to above] should indicate why this is likely to be the case and I should point out that the pages I have chosen as examples are probably some of the best in the returns. I can assure you that there are worse pages. This is why you must treat the 1831 database as simply a means to point you towards the townland or townlands where the name you are looking for is located. You can then go the microfilms in either PRONI or in the Ballymena and Coleraine libraries to look up the details on households. In some cases you might have to go to the National Archives in Dublin to look at the originals.

Within the county database the names and places are arranged in alphabetical order - not the order they appear in the original document. Unlike the c.1860 Griffith's Valuation database, all names are entered even if exactly the same name appears more than once in a townland or street. Most persons listed are heads of households, less than 5% of houses in the county were uninhabited and some of these were industrial or official buildings. Note that the database does not include details of the numbers of males, females and servants living in each house, or their religion. Clearly this information provides the evidence that a house was occupied. I have included a notes column in the database where, in most cases, I will indicate if a house was uninhabited. Unfortunately the enumerators were not consistent across the county in how they recorded an uninhabited house. In some areas they listed a name beside it and in others they did not. Also if there was more than one family living in a house they sometimes gave the name of of the heads of the other families living in the house and sometimes they only listed the name of the main householder. I get the impression that the differences across the county reflect old administrative divisions going back to the "walks" traversed by the collectors of the Hearth Tax. There was always a difference between the way in which the collectors in the Londonderry Walk recorded their names and places and the way that the Dunluce and Toome Walks operated.

There are 41,250 names in this database and for the purposes of sorting and searching I have used a system of "standardised" spelling to group together variant spellings of a name, thereby making it easier to see patterns in the distribution of surnames. For example the name McIntyre is spelt a number of different ways within the returns - McIntyre, McEntyre, McEntire, etc. McIntyre is used as the standardised spelling in one column of the database and the actual, variant spellings are listed in a separate column. If yo have not already done so, you should read the paper on Databases where you will find more about the spelling of surnames and townland names in the databases.

You can access the 1831 database at the 1831 Census Returns link in the left-hand menu. Note that the entries within the database are sorted by surname, barony, parish and townland. There are some parish changes after 1831 and to make it easier to compare parishes in the 1831 database with those in the c.1860 database, I have included a column in the former which indicates those townlands where a change took place.

[1] This is particularly the case in the parishes of Ballynascreen, Dungiven, Lissan, Tamlaght and Tamlaghtard or Magilligan. Ballynascreen, Dungiven and Tamlaghtard or Magilligan have now been completed [22nd March 2012]. Lissan and Tamlaght in the Barony of Loughinsholin have still to be done.