It’s official - 1911census.co.uk launches tomorrow
brightsolid Online Publishing (including findmypast.com) is delighted to confirm that the England & Wales 1911 Census will be made available to the public tomorrow at http://www.1911census.co.uk.
Please see the other posts on this blog for notes on the service and counties available at launch.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
WOOHOO!
January 13th, 2009 at 1:26 am
It sounds like you did a good job preparing for a visitor storm, but I am still glad I got in before everyone awakes.
Here’s my write-up: http://www.tamurajones.net/1911CensusIsLive.xhtml
Notice remark at end; merely consulted the index, but am pretty sure I found both my English grandparents in there
- Tamura
January 13th, 2009 at 9:59 am
ASfter many years of anticipation, Ive signed up, bought my credits and still cant trace my grandfather, great aunt or grandmother. TGrandfather and great aunt were alive and kicking in 1911 and my gaunt had an unusual name so should have been easy to trace. Whats gone wrong??? So much for anticipation
January 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Had hoped that the poor transcriptions errors/spelling which had been repeatedly reported during the test period would have been attended to; but they are all still incorrect and never any response from the emails sent.. so why did we test it?
Given that the names are mistranscribed is one thing but using a place search I find two number 5’s and I need number 6 and it’s a bit expensive to find that neither of these are number 5 and still no sign of number 6….
January 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
It’s too expensive, £3.60 to download a single scan!
January 13th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
What about a subscription service? Buying credits makes this the most expensive of all of the census websites around!
January 13th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Having seen in the newspaper that the census is live today, I’ve tried searching by street name (which I know existed in 1911), and by surname for my great grandparents (born before 1905), and keep getting no results at all….
Hoping this will be sorted out soon, as I’ve been eagerly awaiting the 1911 census publication to try and iron out some strange occurrences in my family history!
January 13th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Surely my expensive subscription covers the 1911 census!? As it is not available I don’t know the answer to this, but judging from the other comments it is £3.60 to download a single scan
January 13th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I’ve been waiting for this for years! but none of my Suffolk relatives are there! and the place search - that is just weird! I know the name of the street, but it doesnt give an option of the town it was in??? Please let ancestry get this - it would be sooo much easier!
January 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
How disappointing the website is down already !!
January 13th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I, too, have tried an address for my Grandparents that I know they were in in 1911, but have found no record. Disappointing after the bally-hoo.
January 13th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I hope the other counties will be on soon. But it is VERY expensive, especially if all your relatives had similar names.
So I also hope it will be on subscription soon!
January 13th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Sorry but the expense is off putting to say the least.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Hi Folks at the FMP site.
Far far to expensive to use..such a shame but Ancestry wins hands down with its subscription method of payment.
I was so excited when I heard that you were handling the 1911 but now I have decided your charges are way over the top, such dissapointment to see you charging to much for the 1911.
SORRY “FMP” BUT NOT FOR ME.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I have Paid my fee, but still cannot get my two Grandparents who
should be on this census for Birmingham.
Please tell me why, as I have quoted both full addresses
January 13th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Far too expensive. At cheapest prices 83p for a modern transcript and £2-50 for a copy of original document.
Need subscriptions and lower prices. I shall wait until the prices come down !
January 13th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
I joined purely for the 1911 census, in preference to my usual Ancestry subscription. Now I feel ripped off having to pay more. It wasn’t made clear this would happen when I joined!
January 13th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
At £3+ a scan I will certainly not be coming back. I have bought and used up two lots of credits in fifteen minutes.
Had great difficulty finding my great grandmother but got there in the end.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:13 am
please can someone help me ! FMP keeps saying the ‘log in’ problem is fixed and I just need to re-set my log in details.. I have done this so many times and still can’t get past the ‘enable cookies’ page. SO have not been able to log in at all.. now or in the trial period. I have internet explorer 6+. Anyone else had this problem? and been able to fix it themselves??? please help
January 14th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I do have to agree that the expense of original scans will make it impossible to cover my whole family.
On a different note, the 100 year rule is frankly crazy, as even secret documents are released in general after 30 years, so 50 yrs would be more sensible.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
The cost of veiwing records is an outrage. Our ansestors gave the information for free. We should have a right to see them at a much lower cost. It would make much better sence for this to be by subscription. Still as with all these things sombody has to make a huge profit.
Ill wait untill it gets to a reasonable price before using it.
January 14th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
The cost is too high, especially if your ancestor has a common name!!! Shame the search results don’t show the persons place of birth, at least then you could narrow it down before you have to use those precious credits to view the transcription. Also, have several birth and marriage certificates from the same period in time, which I used to search addresses, no results from any???
As many previous comments, I’ll be sticking with my Ancestory subscription, and waiting for 1911 to improve in both price and reliability.
January 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Very expensive, especially for those who already have a Find My Past subscription. The cost is particularly high for searches involving common names, as place of birth is not shown on the initial results.
It is also disappointing to find that place of birth and occupation are not shown on a Census Institution Transcript, even after paying 90p!
I’ll be leaving Wiilliams, Wilson and Smith aside for a while longer!
January 14th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
I know exactly where my great grand parents lived in 1911, in fact the family home was only sold 8 years ago. In spite of this fact, they do not appear on the census. The particular street which is terraced has a total of over 180 houses yet when I did a place search, only 25 properties were found, and of course the house numbers which did come up did not include my grandparents!! What’s going on?
January 15th, 2009 at 2:18 am
i have had a subscription recently with ancestry.com and i find i should be able to find some more rellies on your site, if i did not have this info now i think it would be almost too expensive to even bother, the search on ancestry gives you a fair chance at finding rellies, hope you can improve.
i know it is not your ruling but 100 years before release on the census is way out of kilter.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Totally agree with all said, TV made it sound as though you just went on site and could look anything up, was very disappointed to find Ihad to purchase ‘credits’ and front page didnt even say how much these credits would be. such a shame for what could have been a great source of information on our ancestors.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Far to expensive,I agree it should be on subscription by ancestry-please get it sorted ASAP-WE HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH.
January 15th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
just cannot afford to use it -it is soooo disappointing.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Far to expensive. Very disappointed
January 16th, 2009 at 1:58 am
I have recently paid a subscription to FMP and have to agree with most other comments about the expense of purchasing further credits to view the 1911 census. Very disappointed!!
January 16th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I purchased £50 worth of credits on FMP for the express purpose of searching the 1911 census. For some reason, when I click onto 1911 Census via FMP,it shows credit expired. Just can not manage to get through by phone to get the problem sorted.
Even when it is corrected,the money is not going to very far,like the majority of people,I am shocked at the price.
January 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Very very expensive. I understand why there is a charge, as we have to cover the work of digitising the material and building the website - just as we do for the other censuses.
When you first buy the credits from the website, it gives you a price per credit which makes it look quite cheap - but then you get hit for 30 credits in one go for looking at an image.
Personally, I’m going to wait until Ancestry get the 1911C. FMP are just being too greedy!
January 20th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Sadly the search facility is poor - particularly by place. Also with far too many wrong transcriptions ( I’ve used the report facility which is good if they actually check and action the corrections reported) - you wouldn’t mind so much if the writing was illegible - but none were in my case - the transcribing has been rushed and is sloppy by any standards.
As for the pricing - it is far too expensive for most people. If the service is not released to others like Ancestry then at least we should be offered the chance to buy a subscription for unlimited access.
Perhaps there is an argument that if the Government can bolster the economy by hundreds of billions of pounds while we all suffer with the downturn - perhaps they could give us a subsidised service to allow us to occupy ourselves until things return to normal !!
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:01 am
I too had a problem. I purchased 60 credits that supposedly expire in April 2009 - I viewed one original page for 30 credits - so I should have had 30 credits remaining and access to my previously viewed census page.
When I logged on yesterday it said my credits had expired and I no longer was able to view the page I had purchased. I sent them an email asking them to remedy the situation but so far I have not heard back…
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I have to apologize, the error was at my end and customer service has helped me with the issue!
January 24th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Can someone at FMP please explain:-
1) Why so expensive?
2) When will your costs come down?
3) When/If you will sell the rights to Ancestry. Hopefully soon if you insist on maintaining such high access costs!
January 25th, 2009 at 7:20 am
@Glen - please see our post on costs which explains the high costs involved in publishing the census online. A subscription will be available later in the year.
You may want to ask Ancestry directly when they intend to buy the rights to the census (which are beyond our control) - a Google search on this subject will tell you what you need to know.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Just too expensive.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
The cost of this facility is an utter rip-off and I for one will not be using it.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I agree with the mass of comment that searching is too expensive. Until access is provided by reasonably priced subscription I will limit my access to the 1911 census and neither will I be renewing my FindMyPast Subscription. There is surely a danger that you will kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
February 17th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
FAR TO EXPENSIVE!!! Having read other peoples comments and they seem to agree with me. You would have thought considering everyones comments they would have made a subscription availble now - they obviously dont care about customer service, they must be putting all their energy into ripping people off.
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:36 am
The prices to view the 1911 census are an outrage. FMP are denying access to millions of people through plain greed. Further I would like to know why the National Archives are not getting involved and putting pressure on FMP to reduce their charges.
March 3rd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
@ Roger: please see the separate posts on the blog explaining pricing and funding of the project. Prices have been set with full agreement of the National Archives. Also remember that a subscription option will be available later via findmypast.com.
March 20th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Only got my e mail yesterday to say Yorks and Durham up and running,Cheshire started a few weeks back had no probs found all i needed to.
Yorks the same got them in one but Durham 5 names and area’s same,as all said 60 credits 10 mins gone some folk have’nt got money like that,this family finding costs enough as it is.
May 21st, 2009 at 12:47 pm
I like c1911 esp now subs in not too expensive but still very frustrating when you cannot find relatives you know where they lived but when comes back no trace ooooooooooooooh all tho it says most counties done i am sure they have not completed them yet. also roll on Wales lots of folks to look for in the valleys
June 9th, 2009 at 8:04 am
Having paid a large amount for membership I now find I am totally unable to get even basic info. from 1911 census A complete con.In tune with all government controlled fat cats.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:16 am
@Ann - if you are having problems accessing the service, please contact the Customer Support team who will be happy to help.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Thanks to ALL the above comments, I shall not be falling into the RIP-OFF trap. Goodbye!!
July 13th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
i haven’t been getting any results back on a basic search, even with knowing exact details and having read all the comments above (of which there are no positive ones !) I will not be using the service. Much to expensive for those of us on a budget, and clearly issues abound with the accuracy of transcribed info.
FMP, you have lost another customer.
August 25th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
From what Ive just been reading of the extortinate prices FMP are charging I for one WILL NOT be using them or subscribing to their services, it is so very obvious that they feel they can set their prices so high, it is just pure greed. Lower the prices, more people will use their services collecting the same if not more revenue…..greed….not good in any business!!
October 9th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Nearly £7 for just two census copies!!!!….i’d rather poke needles in my eyeballs!!….what an absolute disgrace, selling off our national heritage that was originally paid for from our taxes to a private company so they can rip us off……
October 9th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
As this is government property, given by the public of this country why is it being sold by a third party profit making organization when iit should be free to browse at least!
April 23rd, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Very unreliable. Often does not find ancestors, even with lots of information and the certainty that they were alive and resident in a particular area. Also, VERY EXPENSIVE. Works on a credit system that charges even to view a transcript. Often a searcher cannot be sure if a particular person found is the right one, but you’ll be charged £1.20 a time everytime you check to see and £3.60 just to view the original document. Exorbitant and exploitative. Unless you’re desperate to know where your ancestors were in 1911 and have a lot of money, avoid clear of this. It is designed to milk a researcher for as much money as possible.
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