Just to let you know that the Customer Support team is not available over this weekend - however please do submit questions / issues via the “Contact us” link at the bottom of every page or leave voice messages on the phone system and we will get back to you on Monday.
Many people have reported that the clear search button seems to be a bit erratic. It is working, but not perfectly. Make sure you click on the text in the middle of the button - clicking on the edges doesn’t seem to do anything at the moment. We will try to fix it soon!
A lot of people have fed back that searching the census is not as flexible as it could be! There’s a good reason for that - at the moment some search functions are deliberately restricted. This is to allow the site to deal with more queries immediately after it goes online in 2009, when it is expected that there will be huge demand from people trying to access the service.
The majority of people will be able to find at least some of their ancestors with the current search options. However, as soon as the demand has stabilised, we will release updates to the site to turn on searching with wildcards (including an initial wildcard), provide NameThesaurus variants, and will also lift the restriction that requires users to use a surname for a person search or a street name for the address search. When these restrictions are relaxed it will be *much* easier to find the more elusive ancestors.
Sorry we can’t open these up to you for the moment - however, we need to test the site as it will be at launch. We will email everybody who is registered on the site the moment new features become available after launch, so make sure you register.
We’ve added eight new counties overnight - the counties now available are:
London (previously available)
Middlesex (previously available)
Staffordshire (previously available)
Wiltshire (previously available)
Bedfordshire - NEW
Berkshire - NEW
Buckinghamshire - NEW
Cambridgeshire - NEW
Cornwall - NEW
Devonshire - NEW
Dorsetshire - NEW
Gloucestershire - NEW
Enjoy!
“On the advanced search, the registration district drop-down list occasionally sticks on a particular district.” This should now be working properly again.
Beta testing of the census is underway, with good feedback coming from the testers.
Known issues as at 17 December:
Some registration districts, such as Bermondsey, are not being displayed in the search results, although the data is available and searchable.
On the advanced search, the registration district drop-down list occasionally sticks on a particular district. Take care and double check correct district is used in search.
The site has been opened to beta testing to a limited number of users. The counties currently available are London, Middlesex, Staffordshire and Wiltshire.
In the final stages of preparing the site for beta testing. The site is now in reasonably good shape with only a few minor layout issues, and all the core content now in place. Emails are ready for the first group of beta testing invitees - now just waiting for the word “Go” once we’ve done a full check to make sure everything is working as it should be.