Hearth Tax
I have long been interested in Hearth Tax records as providing the nearest approximation we have to a Census in the 1660s-1680s.
Only two Hearth Tax returns survive to any extent for Shropshire, those for 1662 and 1672. The 1672 was published many years ago, but is not an entirely reliable transcription. I have my own private transcription for a significant part of the 1662 Hearth Tax.
What has survived for Shropshire, though, is a mass of Exemption Certificates and Lists (by parish). These date from 1662 to 1684. They are in the Public Record Office (E179), and I have listed them all, and I am well advanced in transcribing all the names from each document (searchable lists). Exemption from the Tax supposedly was granted to the poorest in each community, but it is surprising what a large percentage of people managed to clamber upon the Exemption 'bandwagon'.
I have, with a colleague, completed a transcript of the Herefordshire Hearth Tax for 1682, and part of the West Riding of Yorkshire for 1684.