* 1911 Census

[regrowlands]

For general interest the information given below is taken from a message board.

This is a quote from the National Archives website. I don't think they mean that release will be in geographical areas but more regarding certain types of information available.

'In response to great public demand The National Archives is developing an online 1911 Census service, covering most parts of the census, with an external partner; we are actively investigating the possibility of launching this digital service in 2009. Over two kilometres of census records, containing the details of 35 million UK ancestors, will be digitised. This will provide an online service, across most fields of the Census, enabling researchers anywhere in the world to search and download digital scans of images from the census. As with our current online census services it will be both address and name searchable. It is anticipated that it will be available from 2009. It will offer a much cheaper and speedier access to the census returns than the planned FOI service. The full 1911 census won't be released until 2012.'


ID:2446

[Jane]

People with Irish Ancestry, may also be interested to hear that 'free' access to digitised 1911 census pages for the Dublin area is due to be opened Autumn 2007

see
http://www.nationalarchives.ie/contactus/census.html

[ireneblackburn]

I have just had an email to say that tomorrow (30 Dec) is the last day the Beta version of 1911 census website will be available.

Irene B

[RalfofAmber]

Same here - I have found the images to be of high quality and look forward to the actual release

[HNyman]

Most users wil realise that the 1911 census is now generally available. One interesting feature that is new to this census is that the 1911 census was the first to ask questions relating to fertility in marriage. Married women were asked to state how long they had been married and how many children had been born from that marriage. I discovered that my mother who I thought was one of three children, in fact had two siblings that appear to have died in infancy. A brother of my maternal grandfather appeared of whom I had no previous knowledge!

[ireneblackburn]

After waiting months for Northumberland, Durham and Cumberland to be available I have spent a few frustrating hours trying to find my family born and living in Northumberland. Would you believe it has been transcribed as NORTHERLAND - no wonder there were so few matches !

[trevorb56]

I am having the same problem as Irene, I was eagerly awaiting the new census for Norhumberland and as soon as it was available on Thursday I bought credits and did a search for my grandmother, to my disappointment there was no trace of the whole family apart from the eldest who had married and left the household, I did find my grandmothers uncle's family, my grandmother was one of eleven children and they should have been still in the one household, I've tried endless searches with no luck. Can anyone help ? !!!!
Many Thanks

[ireneblackburn]

I have had to search as follows county of residence = Northumberland and forget about place of birth as they are such a mess. Unfortunately it gives you a lot of results so where possible give an additional name in the household. I am rather cross as I have wasted a lot of credits. I am only doing the bare minimum now and waiting until it appears on ancestry.

Irene

[trevorb56]

Thanks for that Irene. I have tried all that but with no success and yes I am rather fed up too as I've wasted credits also. I don't understand how I can't find any of the family, I've even done a nationwide search on just the surname and trawled through the christian names I know in the family. Unless my great grandmother was a suffragette and refused to fill in the census !!! now thats a thought !
Many Thanks

[Poacher]

I have spent a few pounds on the 1911 census as it was the first census that my mother & father appeared on. Took some time to find my father as he was transcribed as Wellie Barrett instead of William Barrett. I had the same trouble with my wife's family, her grandparents were correct but all the children including her father had the wrong surname. A visitor at the time the census was taken, was the 3rd entry on the sheet and they had given the children her surname. I reported the errors and they are now transcribed correctly although it took some weeks to action. Interesting thing was that the acknowledgements to my requests were numbered in the 8,000s, so it would seem that there were lots of errors,

[jmurphy]

I just got an email from the 1911 Census website noting that the census is now complete.

Also, the extra pages are coming online, so that if you have paid to see census images, the corresponding enumerator's books and supporting materials are now viewable (assuming they survived and are available -- some material is missing).

Jan

[antheaj]

Having similar problems to others in not being able to find the family I know are there as I have the certificates to prove it. Reported that streets are missing, not mistranscribed but still only get the reply pointing to their excuses that there are reasons, but they don't give any, as to why some areas are missing. Hope that when the Record Offices or Ancestry get the census it will be more complete. Will not be wasting any more money on the 1911 site.[frown]

[jmurphy]

I'm having difficulty downloading some of the pages from the enumerator’s records. Instead of the list of heads of households, for some of my records, I'm getting the cover of the enumerator’s book.

At the moment, you can't view the page within the browser, you can only download the pages from a link:

You will soon be able to view original pages directly within this page. We have temporarily withdrawn this feature to allow more people to use the site at the same time.

I think I'll wait a bit for the dust to settle. Once I can view pages within the browser itself, it'll be easier to report the mis-linked pages.

I do like the feature which allows one to download a spreadsheet / PDF / text file of search results and saved searches.

Jan

[ireneblackburn]

I reported some errors on the 1911 census and these are two of the replies I got (bear in mind they were on the same page in the same household)

1)
Record Description: BELL WILLIAM (RG14PN31034 RG78PN1776 RD564 SD3 ED1 SN404)

Field: birthplace
Original: ASHINGTON NORTHERLAND
Suggestion: ashington NORTHUMBERLAND

On this occasion, we agree that there was an error in the transcription.

We have checked your suggestion against the original image to decide on the
correct information to display; you should see the change reflected on the site within the next 20 days (approx).

2)Record Description: BELL ROBERT (RG14PN31034 RG78PN1776 RD564 SD3 ED1 SN404)

Field: birthplace
Original: ASHINGTON NORTHERLAND
Suggestion: ashington NORTHUMBERLAND

On this occasion we have decided not to change the current online transcription
as it appears to match the original census form within an acceptable margin of error.

How stupid and inconsistent.