Baptism coverage in early nineteenth-century England: The colyton area

Summary

In 1851, for the first time, the English census included a question about place of birth. It is therefore possible to draw up a list of all those living in a registration district who claimed to have been born there. Where registration district and parish boundaries coincide it is also possible to discover how many of those claiming local birth were shown as baptised in the parish register. This appears to offer a convenient method of estimating the extent of the shortfall between recorded baptisms and the total of births occurring in a parish. Misstatement of birth places, and to a lesser degree inaccurate recording of names and ages, however, tends to exaggerate the extent of the shortfall measured in this way. By making use of an earlier reconstitution study of Colyton the nature and frequency of inaccuracies in the census can be investigated. Any estimate of the short fall which was based simply on a comparison between a list of Colyton census names and the local register would also exaggerate its extent since many parents had their children baptised in neighbouring parishes.