1911 census

[Chris Scott]

UK census records are customarily subject to the 100 year rule but my sister, who is currently obsessed with the family history, told me recently that the 1911 UK census records will be released starting 2009.
I have done a bit of digging and it appears that this is the case - at present the first release of records, for the "major conurbations," will start in 2009 but certain "sensitive information" will be held back until the full release in Jan 2012
A website has already been set up at

http://www.1911census.co.uk/

with background info and it is possible to register to get regular updates

One interesting note from the website is on the different format of the 1911 records:
"The 1911 census holds more information than the 1901 census. It is also the first census where the householder's schedule has remained the master entry, rather than the enumerator's notes, so researchers are actually able, in most cases, to view their actual ancestors' handwriting when looking at 1911 census entries. This will be an invaluable resource for anyone who is working hard to trace their family's history."

[Chris]

One interesting note from the website is on the different format of the 1911 records:
"The 1911 census holds more information than the 1901 census. It is also the first census where the householder's schedule has remained the master entry, rather than the enumerator's notes, so researchers are actually able, in most cases, to view their actual ancestors' handwriting when looking at 1911 census entries. This will be an invaluable resource for anyone who is working hard to trace their family's history."

There's also more detailed information about occupations and nationality, and most useful of all, for all married women, the number of years married, the number of children born to the marriage and the numbers of children living and dead.

I believe the information that will be withheld is the final column (Deaf/dumb/blind/lunatic/imbecile etc). And I think people who are still living will be able to block their details from being released.

[Mike Covell]

Thanks for the heads up, I have registered with the website.

[Robert]

"and most useful of all, for all married women, the number of years married, the number of children born to the marriage and the numbers of children living and dead."

I would hope it will be useful, Chris. Emmeline {Pankhurst forgot one of hers in her book.

[Chris]

And now the bad news ...

The site has been offering a preview to those who had signed up for email updates (London and Middlesex are already complete).

While the quality of the images is certainly superior to that for the earlier censuses, the bad news is that they are (currently, at least) much more expensive. A single page, which covers one household, costs at least £2.50 (and to get that rate you have to sign up for £50 worth). That is ten times more than for images of earlier census returns provided by the same company.

Perhaps the price will drop in the future, but at the moment it seems pretty exorbitant.

[Chris Scott]

Hi Chris
Where on the site did you find this?
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
Regards
Chris

[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.

[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 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]

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" ...!

[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

[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

[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".]

[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]

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.