In this week’s newsletter, Sherry Irvine discussed the 1841 and 1851 Scottish Census transcripts available at Ancestry.  Now there are two more years to search. The 1871 and 1891 transcripts were added to the collection.

1871 Scotland Census
The 1871 Census for Scotland was taken on the night of 2/3 April 1871. The following information was requested:

• Place (name of street, place, or road, and name or number of house)
• Name of each person that had spent the night in that household
• Relation to head of family
• Marital Status
• Age
• Sex (indicated by which column the age is recorded in)
• Profession or occupation
• Birthplace
• Whether blind, or deaf and dumb

Enumeration forms were distributed to all households before the census night and the complete forms were collected the next day by the enumerators. All responses were to reflect the individual’s status as of 2/3 April 1871 for all individuals who had spent the night in the house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of the details from the individual forms were copied into enumerators’ books and sent to the Registrar General’s office in London. These copies are the records we can view images of today. The original householder’s schedules were destroyed.

1891 Scotland Census
The 1891 Census for Scotland was taken on the night of 5/6 April 1891. The following information was requested:

• Place (parish and name of street, place, or road, and name or number of house)
• Name of each person that had spent the night in that household
• Relation to head of family
• Marital Status
• Age
• Sex (indicated by which column the age is recorded in)
• Profession or occupation
• Whether an employer, employed, or working on own account
• Birthplace
• Whether speaks Gaelic or Gaelic and English
• Whether deaf and dumb, blind, or lunatic, imbecile, or idiot
• Number of rooms in house with one or more windows

Enumeration forms were distributed to all households before the census night and the complete forms were collected the next day by the enumerators. All responses were to reflect the individual’s status as of 5/6 April 1891 for all individuals who had spent the night in the house. People who were traveling or living abroad were enumerated at the location where they spent the night on census night. All of the details from the individual forms were copied into enumerators’ books and sent to the Registrar General’s office in London. These copies are the records we can view images of today. The original householder’s schedules were destroyed.

Look for more transcripts to be added in the future.