This census was taken on the nights of Sunday and Monday, June 6/7 1841. The returns are grouped by the ancient local areas known as 'hundreds', and Cradley was a Chapelry in the Parish of Halesowen in the Lower Division of the Halfshire Hundred of the county of Worcestershire.

The main information for each person is name, age, sex, occupation and whether or not a person was born in the county of residence. For those under 15, ages were given exactly, if known; for people over 15, ages were rounded down to the nearest five years.

In the enumerators' books, divisions between dwellings are shown with "//" (double forward slash) symbol whilst the single "/" indicates that another family lived in the same dwelling; sometimes this can mean a parent, lodger, or non-family member e.g. a servant.

The Public Records Office reference for this census is 'HO107' and for Cradley the fuller reference is HO107/1197/7, where '1197' is the piece number, which means a box of the enumerators' folders, and '7' is the book. The enumerators' books are bound into folders, generally about five or six at a time. To complete a reference you need to add the particular folio number or numbers followed by a page number. Folio numbers are stamped on the right hand corner of every other page, which is printed in the centre and at the top of each page. Don't ask us why. That is just the way it is. All this information is given in our census transcription to enable you to refer to the original source.

In our 1841 Cradley census transcription we have not expanded on abbreviations. In the case of given names these are mostly fairly obvious, for example, William is often written as Wm., Benj is Benjamin, Elizth is Elizabeth, and so on. Abbreviations are also used frequently for occupations, the main ones are:

• F.S. - Female servant
• M.S. - Male servant
• Lab - Labourer
• Ag Lab - Agricultural labourer
• Cl - Clerk (we think)
• Ap - Apprentice
• Ind - "of independent means"
• ArmyP - Army Pensioner