The Dorset 1841 Census, now also comes as smaller set covering just a few piece numbers on each CD, so why buy the full county set, if you don't need it. This set contains the places covered by HO107/294-295, and it contains images of the census books digitised from the microfilm.
The publishers are very proud of the superb quality of the scanned images. They've have worked from really excellent films copied from the first generation films at the PRO, and have then used the very best possible film scanner currently available to digitise the images at a high resolution.
Link to indexes to browse the areas and streets where your ancestors possibly lived, and it covers the places as they appeared on the 1841 Census fiche (see the list below for the places that are covered by this set).
Note that the CDs contain images of the actual pages of the census enumerators' books. Real original primary research data, (not transcriptions in text format). What you see is the original hand written documents. That does involve you reading the pages rather than typing in a name and expecting the computer to find it. However, you will very quickly become used to the handwriting styles of the different enumerators, and it is easy to click through the pages at even low magnification to spot the people you are looking for.
Features of the CD set are: the ability to magnify an area to see further detail, print the current page, alphabetic street index for larger towns, and searchable area indexes.
Places on CD 5 (HO107/294-295):
Blandford Forum, Blandford Union Workhouse, Bridport, Dorchester All Saints, Dorchester Holy Trinity, Dorchester St Peter, Dorset County Gaol and House of Correction, Lyme Regis, Melcombe Regis, Melcombe Regis Borough Gaol, Poole Borough Gaol, Poole St James, Shaftesbury Holy Trinity, Shaftesbury St James, Shaftesbury St Peter, Shaftesbury Union Workhouse, Sherborne, Sherborne Union Workhouse, Wareham Holy Trinity, Wareham Lady St Mary, Wareham St Martin, Wareham Union Workhouse, Waymouth Cavalry Barracks, Waymouth Union Workhouse, Weymouth
