Original 1911 Census reports
Want to find out what the statisticians of the time gleaned from the 1911 census data?
Take a look at the reports on the excellent Vision of Britain website from the University of Portsmouth
Tags: 1911, britain, census, portsmouth, reports, university, visiion
May 5th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Can we get the *latest* update about the current progress for Wales transcriptions please, I was kind of hoping that due to the relatively low population per acre of Wales in comparison with England that there might be something available this month? please, please, pretty please, pretty please with a whole ot of cherries on top!
May 7th, 2009 at 3:48 am
I second that. Please can we have an update.
May 10th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
I’d like to know when the “enumerators’ schedule books” are going to go on-line.
The 1911 web-site says “…six to eight weeks after launch….” That time interval has surely passed?
Availability of the “schedule books” was one of the justifications for the relatively high cost - 30 credits - of viewing a household schedule.
An update would be appreciated. Thank you.
May 14th, 2009 at 4:49 am
I was wondering the same as Noel - the last I read was that they’d be online in April, it’s mid May now and there is no sign of them still. Could we see them please ?
May 16th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Once again, a deafening silence from FMP…surely my polite request above is worthy of at least a courtesy reply?
May 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
This is the reply that I received from the “Customer Support team” on 19th May 2009:
‘We are currently unable to give a set time for when Enumerators pages will become available. The best we can offer is that it will be in the next few months.’
I don’t think that is is really quite good enough. Availability of these pages was one of the selling points used to justify the charge of 30 credits for an image.
May 20th, 2009 at 6:45 am
@Noel: provision of the RG78 images has only ever been mentioned on this blog, not on the 1911census site, and has certainly never been used to justify the price of accessing the census. Other posts on the blog explain the access costs and the reasons for them and no link should be inferred between the two.
As soon as we can give you a concrete update on RG78s, we will.
For the moment please bear with us, and accept our apologies for our over-enthusiastic early release target, but also be mindful of the fact that although the RG78s are a “nice to have” (and we are keen to share them with you as soon as they are available in a suitable format) they are not an explicit part of the overall service offering.
Our focus remains the delivery of the remaining RG14s - we can not and will not jeopardise this or compromise the quality of the RG78 release, and we hope that you would not seek for us to do so…
May 20th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Iantester.
I would beg to differ with your previous statement regarding mention only on this blog. The following is from the 1911census website, within “About the 1911 census”. It clearly mentions “enumerators books” and “6 to 8 weeks from launch.
“The 1911 census documents
Prior to 1911, the household schedules were destroyed once the details had been transferred into the enumerators’ summary books. But for the 1911 census both sets of records have been preserved, which means you can see the census documents filled out in your ancestor’s own hand (complete with mistakes and additional comments), in addition to the edited version in the enumerators’ summary.
At launch the household schedules (original household pages), plus their transcriptions are available. The enumerators’ summary books will go online six to eight weeks after launch.”
May 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm
@martin - I stand corrected by our eagle-eyed public! Apologies for missing this myself.
Obviously this timeline is no longer accurate and I’ll get the page updated to reflect that, but we will keep you updated on progress here.
May 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
A statement taken from a recent issue of Ancestors magazine (see National Archives site, or http://www.ancestorsmagazine.co.uk/?page=article&id=639) is as follows: “Enumerators’ Summary Books have just been made available online. The books were compiled by regional enumerators at the same time as the census returns and include unique information about each inhabited property.” This was in volume 80, issued a couple of months ago (I think). How does this tie in with the statement above (see, Noel, 20th May) that these Summaries won’t be available for several months?
Thank you.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:51 am
@caroline: findmypast.com have no connection with Ancestors magazine, so we can’t really comment on anything they’ve published. However, this statement is clearly incorrect.
June 1st, 2009 at 8:31 am
I might be wrong, but is not “Ancestors” magazine the magazine of the “The National Archives” and is not “Findmypast” a partner with TNA in the project of digatising the 1911 census. There must be some connection there??
Mark
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 pm
There’s about 1,000 days to the “proper” release date - i.e. January 2012: perhaps it will ALL be scanned, correctly indexed, digitised and available by then. Maybe!
No slacking - no days off.
J
June 4th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Mark is absolutely correct. “Ancestors” magazine is indeed associated with TNA - if not published by TNA, certainly very closely linked. The “Ancestors” home page is gaily decorated with the TNA logo, and those of 1911census.co.uk and findmypast.com.
Whatever way FMP wriggles on this one, the hook only gets deeper.
A promise was made that enumerators’ books would be available within 6-8 weeks after the launch. Intended or not, that promise was seen by FMP’s customers as some justification for the charge of 30 units per image.
The promise has not been kept, and that is extremely disappointing.
June 4th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Iantester
Two weeks have passed since your apology, but the website has still not been changed, and you have not kept us updated as to progress.
Surely 1911census.co.uk must have some idea as to when the Enumerator’s Summary Books will become available.
I understood that they were not released, although available, at the time of launch so as not to overload the system. Things must surely have quietened down by now.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Further to my previous entry: I have copied this from your blog dated 15 January 2009. The “within the next month” of paragraph 2 is taking a long time.
“So far, we have only made a single image available on 1911census.co.uk - the principal original page of the RG14 Household (or Institution) Summary.
Within the next month, we will make the following images available at NO EXTRA COST.
If you have already bought the original page of the household original page, you will be able to view any associated images for free, simply by returning to the record you have paid for via the “My Records” area on the website. Any new images that you buy will have all the associated images available at the flat cost of 30 credits for the lot.
Not every search result will have all of the following images available but many households will.
Extra RG14 Household (or Institution) Schedule images:
The address panel from the back of the schedule, showing the address as written by your ancestors and the registration district and subdistrict
The front page of the volume in which your schedule was stored, giving more detailed information on parishes and districts
Extra RG78 Enumerator Summary Book images
The Front page of the volume in which the Enumerator’s Summary sheet was stored
Enumerator’s Summary original page - this not only shows the names of heads of households and how many people occupied the houses (showing you the neighbours), but also lists other buildings, whether houses or not.
Population statistics for the area
a description of the Enumerator’s walk
(in some cases) a map of the Enumerator’s walk
The Enumerator’s summary original page in particular is a real treasure trove of local information and can also help you unlock mysteries such as family living nearby.”
June 5th, 2009 at 3:13 am
@martin and others: we have kept you updated - if you read the original thread, you will see the updates there - in response to your posts we have decided not to communicate any further live dates so as to avoid further disappointment.
I have already apologised (several times) for the fact that the images are later than we originally hoped - we found numerous problems with them which is taking time to fix but we are making good progress. They could not have been released at launch.
Apologising for the delay in no way constituted a promise to accelerate the release of the images. Had we released the images earlier, with problems, I suspect that you would be equally outraged, if not more so. As I’ve explained elsewhere, we are focussing on the Welsh records first, the RG78s will be addressed after that.
Do bear with us - running a project of this complexity is not simple and some delays are inevitable. However, as many others have pointed out, we are still very much ahead of schedule and you will have your RG78s in the near future.
@Mark, Caroline and Noel - there is a connection in that Ancestors is published by the TNA, and we are a partner of the TNA for this and other digitisation projects. However, beyond this, the two organisations are completely independent.
June 5th, 2009 at 5:21 am
So maybe FMP/1911 should tell “Ancestors Magazine” not to publish any thing about the 1911 census without speaking to FMP/1911. It seems at the moment there is no dialogue between the two even though they are partners more or less in some way.
Mark