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LECALE & DOWNE HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Census of Ireland 1901

Appendix 6
Notes on the transcription


  1. Use of 'short-hand' by transcriber:
    A decision was made early on to use the abbreviations 'RC' for Roman Catholic and 'C of I' for Church of Ireland on the basis that these two denominations were likely to be the most common and thus that this would save time. Abbreviations are also used in the 'Read Write' column to save time. This, of course, results in a small loss of information. However, other than this there has been an effort to accurately transcribe the data, including mis-spellings.

  2. Form A:
    Christian Name: Where the first name could be either 'Mary' or 'May', 'Mary' has been written. Therefore, a small percentage of 'Marys' may be 'Mays'.
    Disability Column: It would seem likely that this column has largely been ignored. There were only about six instances in total in Lecale where either the words 'Idiot' or 'Imbecile' were used to describe a member of a household. This is very likely to be a gross under-representation of the true level of these disabilities. For that reason, and for reasons of sensitivity, those few instances have not been included on the online census. Researchers wishing to know that information will have to search for it in the other public sources such as the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

  3. Form B1:
    Name of Landholder Column: It may sometimes contain information useful to genealogists and historians. The names in this column have not been included in the surname index. Often, but not always, these names are the names of the Head of Family which appear on Form A. All names on Form A are included in the surname index.

  4. Form B2:
    As is indicated on the Forms themselves, sometimes a sheet of data is missing from the original microfilmed record.

  5. Form N:
    As is indicated on the Forms themselves, often a sheet of data is missing from the original microfilmed record.

  6. Maps:
    It is hoped that the simple maps provided will give a general indication as to the location of townlands, villages etc.. If more information about the location of townlands, minor roads, geographical features etc. a professionally published map source such as the excellent Discoverer Series produced by the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland should be consulted. Sheet 21 covers the vast majority of Lecale including a part of Dundrum village and part of the townland of Murlough Lower. For the rest of the village of Dundrum, the rest of the townland of Murlough Lower, Annsborough village and the remaining eight Lecale townlands in the Parish of Kilmegan, you need Sheets 20 and 29. Unfortunately, Sheets 20, 21 and 29 all meet somewhere in Dundrum townland or village!