* 1911 Census

[arshawbrown]

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

ID:3350

[mezentia]

1. Expensive
2. Difficult to be sure if you've got the right transcript for common names for an area
3. Hope it gets onto Ancestry soon[frown]

[robbo43]

So far two families with wrongly indexed surnames, one wrongly spelt placename and six families I haven't been able to find - presumably more wrongly indexed names. Maybe I'm unlucky but at the moment that works out at 36% of households with indexing errors.

Robert

[RalfofAmber]

I did some beta testing, I also found it:

a) Expensive
b) I don't like the transcription or image choice
c) Search limited to two years either side
d) Results list is sparse on information - for all its faults ancestry does give you more details in the results lists
e)excellent quality images
f) responsive support - I reported an image fault which was fixed in a few days

[ChrisBowyer]

In defence of the transcribers, they're working from the householder's form, so the handwriting changes every page, and of course, unlike the enumerators, the householder wasn't necessarily very used to filling in official forms. I think we should expect a significantly higher rate of transcription errors, place name variations, etc.

[PatrickT]

I must be lucky as I've come across no (serious) transcription errors so far. Perhaps my ancestors all had good handwriting!

In general I agree with the comments about cost and interface although they only have a limited time window to recover their costs (and, presumably, turn a small profit [smile]) before the exclusivity period ends. I have also found that I can narrow the search down fairly precisely by using the advanced search filters. I haven't yet tried any common surnames though.

I find the most frustrating aspect to be the fact that the only reference in the original images to the census place is the householder's entry in the address box. This sometimes consists of just a street name. As I don't intend paying for a transcript (where the registration district, sub-district and enumeration districts are spelt out) as well as the original image this means I have to check the National Archives catalogue reference which is a bit tedious.

[NickWalker]

A nice trick I found last night (I'm sure many of you already spotted it)....

I searched for Sarah Scott with 'Other Member of Household' as Hilda Scott. From this I was able to find that 'my' Sarah was in Alton Hampshire. Then I did another search for just surname Scott, in Alton Hampshire with 'other member of household' Hilda Scott and the entire family group (apart from Hilda) appeared in the search results. Doesn't give the full details but confirms which members of the family were living there at the time, their names and their ages. It won't work for every family (it helps if the first names are not really common and there is no one with the same full name in the town) but this will do for me until the extortionate £3 a page cost comes down.

[AlanWhite]

I can only echo the comments on the cost. I was staggered when I heard the guy from NA on the Today program say that the cost was £2.50-£3.50 per image. That's a rip-off: a company shouldn't be making a profit in providing access to public information. I think it's a great shame that the increased interest in family history has meant many companies jumping on a bandwagon to provide chargeable access to information that used to be free. I can see and enjoy the cost trade-off between doing it online and visiting e.g. Kew but ~£3 per image can't be justified in that way.

Luckily I have several hundred findmypast credits which I was struggling to use up: should be easy now [smile]. And some of those credits were bought at less than 10p so 1911 will actually be a little cheaper for me for a while. I too hope that it'll be on Ancestry soon.

What's this 'exclusivity period', and how long is it?

I've not actually gone beyond the free index yet as I'm waiting for an answer to a question I've asked them. The question is: if I buy an image now with some data 'redacted'* do I have to pay again in 2012 to see the image in full? If so I'd rather wait.


* A strange use of the word: according to my dictionary it doesn't mean what they think it does. In any case, why not just say 'hidden'? [rolleyes]

[gerrynuk]

This definition of 'redacted' suggests that the word was used correctly:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/redact

Gerry

[David_Lewis]

Used the site this morning to look up some ancestors. Had one families surname (Shouler) indexed as (Strouler)

I new from a previous Census that the family lived in Main Street, Padbury Bucks so looked at the transcripts from there and luckily my family came up as the third family.

I guess I would have found them a little quicker if the enumarators page had been available.

Agree with others that the fee is rather hefty however I should imagine that few of us need to look up say more than 4 to eight families, would we?

[RalfofAmber]

David_Lewis said:
..
Agree with others that the fee is rather hefty however I should imagine that few of us need to look up say more than 4 to eight families, would we?

Depends what you mean by 'need'!

I have a tendency to look for various cousins and great-great aunts and uncles which in a family of 8 or 9 living children is not a small number. I also have my grandfather and his sister aged 10 months and 2 years both in hospital in 1911 so to get him, his sister and parents cost me three images!

[TimTreeby]

David_Lewis said:
..
Agree with others that the fee is rather hefty however I should imagine that few of us need to look up say more than 4 to eight families, would we?

Personally will need 10 just for direct ancestors.

6 - GreatGreatGranParents ( 1 set died believe another set were dead by then)
4 - GreatGrandParents.

Would still nedd Siblings etc so cost wise will be extremly prohibitive.
may well just go for transcriptions or wait until Subscribtion service starts later this year. Or depending when Ancestry allowed to use it wait until then.

[ADC65]

Although I find the cost expensive, I'm not sure it isn't fair and reflective of the costs required to scan millions of documents and provide the huge amount of hardware required to host the data. Somebody has to pay for all that work and equipment, and if not us as the end users, then who?

I believe this data will be free to search and view at Kew, admittedly not much consolation if you are across the other side of the country.

So far I have had very little trouble finding the people I wanted, and it is great to see this data 3 years early. The images are first class. The search facilities will become much more sophisticated according to the site, allowing wild cards and full address searches. They are restricting these searches at first to make sure everyone can access the site.

All in all I am very pleased!

[ADC65]

Although I find the cost expensive, I'm not sure it isn't fair and reflective of the costs required to scan millions of documents and provide the huge amount of hardware required to host the data. Somebody has to pay for all that work and equipment, and if not us as the end users, then who?

I believe this data will be free to search and view at Kew, admittedly not much consolation if you are across the other side of the country.

So far I have had very little trouble finding the people I wanted, and it is great to see this data 3 years early. The images are first class. The search facilities will become much more sophisticated according to the site, allowing wild cards and full address searches. They are restricting these searches at first to make sure everyone can access the site.

All in all I am very pleased!

[AlanWhite]

Adrian Cook said:
Although I find the cost expensive, I'm not sure it isn't fair and reflective of the costs required to scan millions of documents and provide the huge amount of hardware required to host the data.

'The release of the 1911 census has been immensely popular so far, says Elaine Collins, commercial director of findmypast.com. By midnight on Tuesday, there had been 3.4m searches and 17.4m page views.' (BBC News)

So at an average cost of £3 per page that's £51m that findmypast have made in the first two days. I've worked on large IT projects and that's a lot of money to develop and run something of this nature.

If that rate of viewing continues then findmypast are looking at £9bn revenue in the first year [eek].

[ADC65]

Well I don't want to get into defending findmypast.com, or disagreeing with you in any substantial way Alan. I was just stating that I was happy with the service. I work in large IT projects as well, and £51m is nothing to some of the projects I see (though not work on, thankfully). But that £51m is not profit, as we don't know the costs, and it is highly unlikely that that search level is going to be sustained for an entire year.

[jmurphy]

A friend in the UK alerted me to the site going live, and told me about the search trick that Nick posted above.

I agree that 3 pounds is steep for an image, but when you consider the travel costs for me (in the US) to get to Kew, it's a bargain! [wink]

Surely we can bring down the cost a bit by sharing search strategies here as Nick has done.

I made a new Named List last night for the 1911 Census to use once I am ready to pay for the images, and added names as I found good candidates for the people in my database. Preparing household summary sheets like the ones available for download here (if you haven't done so already) is also useful for getting ideas on how to use Nick's search strategy.

Before searching a census I find it helpful to assemble other resources. Tax records (including maps), city directories, descriptions of boundaries for EDs, a list of questions on the census and/or a blank form for that census, household checklists as mentioned above, and data about when the boundaries of the registration districts changed -- all provide information that will help you find clues in the data you already have on hand.

Jan

[PatrickT]

To be fair, the 1911 census blog actually says 'The first day (midnight to midnight) of the release of the 1911 Census went very well - we served up 3.4 million searches and 17.4million pages to 645,000 visitors who made 827,000 visits between them'. That could mean that 3.4 million searches gave links to 17.4 million pages, not that they were necessarily viewed and paid for. Indeed, if they were, that would mean that the average visitor was paying for a fraction short of 27 pages at a minimum cost of somewhere between £22 & £67 depending on whether they were viewing transcripts or original images.

On a value for money (or lack of it!)point, the following appears in the Help & Advice Section of the 1911 site:

'Viewing the images of the household pages uses 30 credits, which costs from £2.50 to £3.48, depending on the package of credits that you buy.

The images have all been scanned in very high quality colour – all previous censuses have only been available in black and white – giving much clearer images and greater legibility than previous censuses.

For this price you will also be able to view all the associated images for the family: this includes both sides of the household form ( RG 14); the page from the enumerator’s book,which lists the head of household for all the neighbouring buildings; summary statistical pages for the registation district and details of the enumerator’s walk (RG 78). For most searches this means that you will get at between two and seven images for your 30 credits.

Please note: at launch only the main RG 14 image will be available, but once you have bought the image of RG14 household orignal page your search will be saved in ‘my records’ and you will be able to able to view the associated RG 78 images without any further payment as soon as these are available on site.'

[jmurphy]

I saw the explanation of the two payment levels (8p credits vs. 10p credits) but could not find the page which listed the cost of the two packages. Is that shown to the user once you actually decide to pay for a transcription or image?

I vaguely recall seeing the price in an article in a magazine, but don't have the magazine on hand.

[If Find My Past had the passenger lists incoming to the UK, it would be trivial for me to use up any remaining credits, but as I recall, only Ancestry does.]

By the way, if you are in the US and searching Ancestry to see if you can get hits for your relatives in the UK, the information returned is paltry, and sometimes downright deceptive. I'd like to see all the services do better at saying precisely what was matched when they present a search result.

Jan

[AlanWhite]

I think the point I, and possibly others, have missed on the cost of the 1911 census is that £3 may be perfectly reasonable to view an image for an ancestor that you can, from the index, definitely determine is the one you want.

But family history research usually isn't like that. The transcription may be (and is) flawed; you may have a common name; you may have no idea where the person lived or who with. In other words, you need to actually do research. You may need to look at tens if not hundreds of images to find the right one. This could get very, very expensive.

I'm emailing my MP as I think this is a private company extorting the public to provide a public service. It won't make any difference, of course, but it will make me feel better [grin].

[philjo]

I understand that the 1911 census will be also available through the findmypast site later in the year. After that, findmypast full subscribers will have unlimited access to the census images on the fmp site.

[mezentia]

Alan's point about research is extremely important, highlighting as it does the fairly regular need to scan many pages of original documents to identify the family you want. I had one case where the family gave all sorts of incorrect information, probably to hide the fact that they were not married and avoid being found by the woman's first husband! To copy the research process on the 1911 census would cost me hundreds of pounds.

It seems we must be patient and wait for a subscription access (and hope that pages we have already viewed remain noted until that facility becomes available and we can then see the additional pages we can't currently get to), but findmypast does not offer the same value for money as Ancestry, and I don't want multiple subscriptions if they can be avoided. Whoever chose FMP as a partner made, with hindsight, a bad mistake. In my humble opinion, of course.

I have noted that Ancestry do provide some full colour images where the original monochrome images are not very readable.

As a separate question, has anyone tried the Pilot site available on familysearch.org? I used it for the first time yesterday and was able to pull up American census record images that have sparked an interesting search through a part of my family I thought I had pretty well  covered.

[rclrocco]

I'm with you philjo. I'll wait until all the hullabaloo dies down and access it later for nothing[smile] via FMP.

I've waited nearly 100 years and so a few more months now is fine. What's the hurry??[rolleyes]

[ChrisBowyer]

jmurphy said:
...but could not find the page which listed the cost of the two packages.

Just click the 'Buy Credits' link and it gives you a choice of how many and the prices. You can always press Back if you don't really want any.

[ChrisBowyer]

Nick Walker said:
A nice trick I found last night

Nice one Nick... Great for unusual names, and has the advantage of making you feel good about getting one back on the profiteers.

But I do agree with everyone else who said the present arrangements are next to useless for the hard-to-find individuals, where you usually end up browsing the village for silly spellings, or paging through hundreds of wild-card search results. I always take a pride in finding people who other searchers say are missing from the census... And it's really a thrill when they eventually turn up. Can't do that kind of thing with this 1911 one [frown]