Notes on the creation of this transcription




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© 2024 Redditch Library

Data Collected by Ian Preece

Transcribed June-November 2023 by Ian Preece, Mike Dolphin, Natalie Humeniuk, Elaine Daykin, Pam Duncan and Lorraine Mills.

Presentation By Derek Coombes

The original copy of this Population Account is held at Worcestershire Archives, in the Hive at Worcester. It is an early "Census", preceding the national Census introduced in 1841. It consists of a hardback book, with two pages used for each of the sections. Each left hand page contains names and occupation details, whilst the right hand page contains the totals of household members in each age range, separated for Male and Female in each case. There are no addresses given in the book. This format has been recreated using a single landscape-format page incorporating the left and right hand pages.

There are columns showing how many households are in each property, whether or not buildings are occupied or being built, and splits occupations into three groupings - Agricultural, Trades, and Others.

Each page has been transcribed twice, and an Excel sheet used to compare the two copies, with any differences highlighted. Those differences have then been examined to confirm the final transcription.

It has not been possible to transcribe and agree every single entry - there are a handful where doubt remains, and these have been indicated with question marks. Equally, everything has been transcribed as it is found, so some words and names will be spelled 'incorrectly' e.g. Wheelright and Cole Merchant.

The original records used "" marks to indicate there was no entry, and this has been replaced by an "x" in the transcription. Similarly, the original entries used "Do" for ditto, and this has been replaced by the actual entry.

Some households contain more than one family, and will sometimes have occupations in more than one column. In addition, there are households with more than one person having the same occupation, and this is often shown by the number in brackets e.g. Labourer (2), or sometimes simply "Labourers".

Ian Preece, December 2023