The census for 1861 complied to the standard national format. The details were compiled for each house/residence by the head of the household whose name appeared first. His/her name was followed by the rest of the inhabitants in the property at the time.  The marital status ( married, unmarried, widow/widower), age , occupation (if any ) and place of birth was recorded for each person. The location of the property was also given.

These  details as supplied to the Census Office were transcribed by hand in copperplate writing onto  pre-printed forms. If any of you have seen examples of this style of  writing you will be aware that it is very ornate with lots of flourishes particularly on  capital letters as well as most of the  letters with ascenders and decenders such as h, l, k, b, f, g, j and y. On occasions this made it very difficult for me to establish names accurately and you will find I have resorted to using ?? marks.

Some of the place names make interesting reading as a number of them are no longer thought of as part of modern-day Netherthong.  Among these are   Sand bed, Hole Bottom, Lower Hagg, Thongs Bridge – North Side  and Thongs Bridge – South Side, Crodingley, Bastile, Upper Greave, Lower Greave, Wolfstone, Bridge Mill, Upper Fearnought and Lower Fearnought.