1911 census

[Robert]

Hi Mark

The idea of researchers pooling their info seems fine to me. The problem arises in the course of searching for an image. Although the images we want cost £X per image, it will often be necessary to spend much more than that as one weeds out mistranscriptions.

[m_w_r]

Proposal

Hi chaps -

A little late-night initiative.

What are the legalities, or the ethics, of having a "1911 Census Image Swap Group" here on Casebook?

At the moment, 1911 census images are quite expensive (up to £3.60 each, depending on the number of credits you buy). But we don't all have to buy all of them.

Mike has already kindly offered to forward his 1911 Stephenson image to interested parties on another thread. I'm quite happy to buy, let's say, an Abberline (he's on there), and provided that Mike's happy to do it, swap my Abberline for his Stephenson. We now each have two images; we have each only paid for one. And so it goes on, if more people join in.

I could set up another thread so that people can post up what they've got (ie, Mike says, "I've got R.D. Stephenson", and I say, "I've got F.G. Abberline") and then interested parties simply PM the person holding the image they're keen on, and offer a swap with the image they themselves have bought. It seems like a simple way of building up a collection for the total outlay of £3.60 per person.

I am consulting on this before I take any action. What potential problems could arise? Is it a terrible idea, unworkable, prone to end in fearful internal disputes, or liable to end up with someone in court? I am happy to take on board any opinions, and we can proceed from there.

Regards,

Mark

[Mike Covell]

Robert D'Onston Stephenson found in the 1911 Census, with help from Chris Scott, and the transcription is quite different from the image, which offers tantalising views on Stephenson's marital status!!

Thanks Chris, you have made a Hull man very happy (and that doesn't happen very often!)

[Robert]

Meanwhile the Irish National Archives seem to have their 1911 census online for free!

[Mike Covell]

I know how you feel,

I bought my credits and tried the following but got no results,
Roslyn Donston
Rosyln D'Onston
Roslyn Douston
Rosyln D'Ouston
Robert Donston
Robert D'Onston
Robert Stephenson
Robert Donston Stephenson
Robert D'Onston Stephenson
Robert Doodly doo and the Stephenettes

and not a thing!!

[Robert]

It's very frustrating!

[Chris]

Try visiting a local museum and/or library. Where I work (Thomas Warne Museum and Library-- a name rather larger than the place itself) we have a public computer and membership with Ancestry, so people can do all the research they want and only pay for pages that they print out.

Unfortunately, as discussed above, Ancestry don't plan to provide access to the 1911 census at the moment. The owners of the website that's being launched today will have a monopoly.

[LadyG]

Try visiting a local museum and/or library. Where I work (Thomas Warne Museum and Library-- a name rather larger than the place itself) we have a public computer and membership with Ancestry, so people can do all the research they want and only pay for pages that they print out.

[Chris]

Apparently the site is going to be launched officially tomorrow*. Unfortunately the pricing seems to be unchanged, and the other bad news is that because of concerns about the load on the servers the franchisees have "deliberately restricted some of the search functions on the site, meaning that the search is not as flexible as it will be later on". I'm not sure quite what that means, because some features such as wildcards didn't seem to be working during the trial period anyway.

[* Edit: Make that "today".]

[Sam Flynn]

I don't know how accurate the 1911 transcription is, but I'm pretty sure that there wasn't really a woman who went by the name of "Belly Abrahams" ...!

The good news is that "Ebenezer Minge" (1861) had probably been put out of his misery by then

[Sam Flynn]

...I just wish Ancestry would sort out their inconsistent indexes.

1881 - you can search on such goodly things as street-name and occupation; any other census - forget it

[Chris]

Chris

Thanks for that information.

That's a shame, because I think the current providers of the 1911 census would benefit from at least the prospect of some competition. The problem is that the prohibitive charges make it very difficult to track down entries that have been mistranscribed. I don't know how accurate the 1911 transcription is, but I'm pretty sure that there wasn't really a woman who went by the name of "Belly Abrahams" ...!

[Chris Scott]

Hi Chris G
I have received the foloowing reply from Ancestry.com:

Dear Chris,

Thank you for your email.

We don't have plans to purchase the 1911 census early at this time. We are currently focusing on sourcing historical records that go further back in history and will soon be launching the London Metropolitan Archives collection, which includes pre-1837 parish registers.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Chris
many thanks for the info
I have sent a mail to the help desk at Ancestry.com to see if there is any general info available yet about if and when 1911 data will be available on their site
I'll let you know what they say
Chris S

[Chris]

The charge seems high per page but I am sure this will come down when it is available onload via approved genealogy sites.
The 1911 site is powered by Find My Past and any member of that, I assume, will be able to access the pages as they become available online
I also trust and hope that the same will be true of the site to which I subscribe, Ancestry.com

The 1911 site apparently uses the same system of credits as the main "Find My Past" site. At least, credits bought on the 1911 site can be used on FMP. The images just cost ten times as many credits as those for the earlier censuses.

Whether people who subscribe to one of the flat rate "unlimited access" packages on FMP will have access to the 1911 records I don't know. (If it turns out that they do I shall be rather miffed, as I've already spent £2.50+ for a number of images.)

I'm not sure what the score will be for Ancestry.com. Presumably if they want to offer access to the 1911 census they'll have to reach some kind of agreement with the National Archives. Whether it's likely they'd be allowed to use the same images I don't know.

One aspect is that digitising this census is a much larger job than for previous ones, because there is a separate sheet for each household. And apparently the back of each sheet has been digitised too (the backs don't seem to be available yet and I'm not sure what's on them). So that makes maybe ten times as many images as for earlier years.