Family Tree Maker 2012: Citing a UK Census

I want to be in control of my sources and citations, and to do this I have decided I will hand write all citations using the templates available in FTM 2012. I Googled in an effort to see how other people were doing it and found a few examples from the US Census, but none from a UK census, so I thought I'd publish what I did in an effort to help others (and as a reference to remind myself what I did!).

I'm going to add the 1881 census record for Matthew Elders and family.

To begin, go to the sources tab at the top, and then click 'Add', the first of the four buttons in the top right of the screen. This launches the 'Add Source Citation' window.

From here, click 'New...' for the source title which launches the 'Add Source' window. FTM 2012 uses the blank template when creating its sources, giving the opportunity to fill in the name, location and date of the publication, as well as its repository. Personally, I feel this amount of information is unnecessary for a census record as they are so readily available.

I chose to select 'more' to see what templates were available and found the source group 'Census Records'. The records I am viewing are on Ancestry.co.uk, making them digital copies, which leads me to the only template for UK census returns; 'Online Archive - United Kingdom and Wales' (for this moment we'll skip over the the fact that United Kingdom already includes Wales..!).

Your selection should look like the window above. Now you're ready to fill in some data!

I filled in my form as the above. Now to pre-empt a few questions. Why Yorkshire? I get pretty confused by Yorkshire, and I've lived there all my life! Is Hull East Riding? East Yorkshire? North Yorkshire? A quick search of GENUKI has it in Hullshire! So to save myself the brain ache, anything that says Yorkshire on any census will be filed under Yorkshire, so I know it was in the County of Yorkshire at that time.

The second question is likely to be 'What have you written in the comments box?' Closely followed by 'Why?' This is something I have taken from the citation created by FTM 2012 when you download an Ancestry record, and I have decided to keep it. The full text says 'Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881, Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881.' Whilst Ancestry and various other websites hold copies of each census, the originals are still found at The National Archives in Kew. This doesn't show up in the reference, but it's a useful piece of information to keep around (the text for each year can be found at the bottom of each individual census return on the Ancestry website).

Upon clicking OK you are taken back to the 'Edit Source Citation' window. The point of a citation is so other people can trace your research and find where you got your evidence from. Therefore I cite the class, piece, folio and page of the record. I also list the name of the people on the record, as listed on that census. Finally I state the date I accessed the image and that it was found in an online source.

The text from this citation detail is:
Class: RG11; Piece: 4751; Folio: 115; Page: 20; GSU roll: 1342147; Matthew Elders, Jane Ann Elders, John Elders, Hannah J. Elders, Anne Elders, Alice Elders; Accessed 3 March 2012; Online Source.


In the citation text box I transcribe the record. This means I have a written copy of everything, as well as forcing me to go through each record carefully, looking at the spelling and figuring out the words. This way you are much less likely to miss an important fact.

The information gleaned from this census return is:

Civil Parish of Newington; Parliamentary Borough of Hull; Urban Sanitary District of Newington; Ecclesiastical Parish or District of St John the Baptist, Newington.
Schedule No. 95; 6 Western Villas.
1) Matthew Elders, Head, Married, age 31, Railway Enginer Driver, born in Yorkshire, Egton.
2) Jane Ann Elders, Wife, Married, age 29, born in Yorkshire, Lealholm.
3) John Elders, son, age 8, Scholar, born in Yorkshire, Hull.
4) Hannah J. Elders, Daughter, age 7, Scholar, born in Yorkshire, Hull.
5) Anne Elders, Daughter, age 4, born in Yorkshire, Hull.
6) Alice Elders, Daughter, age 1, born in Yorkshire, Hull.
(I have transcribed all the information at the top of the page, followed by the schedule number and address. Finally I number each member of the household and transcribe all of their information.)

The final step is to move to the Media tab within the 'Edit Source Citation' window and attach an image of the census for future reference.

And voila! You have selected a UK census! Your workspace should look something like this:

You'll notice my Reference Note in the bottom right of the screen is quite short. This is because I have un-ticked the 'Include in ref.note' box next to Citation text. When I go to generate a report, all the important information should have been linked to a fact, rendering a second copy of the text irrelevant. However if you prefer to have all the information then leave that box ticked.