The 1911 census is now complete
The final batch of records has now been added to the 1911 census, and includes the Channel Islands of Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey and Sark, and the Isle of Man.
We’ve also added records for around 135,000 soldiers based at 288 military establishments overseas, and around 36,000 naval personnel on 147 Royal Navy Ships overseas.
In 1911 the British Empire was nearing its peak and you can find soldiers and sailors located across the globe at remote outposts of the empire, as well as in other countries, such as Egypt, where Britain had a political and military presence but which were never formally part of the empire.
You will be able to search for army personnel who were stationed overseas, plus family members who went with them, as well as soldiers who were absent on the night of the census, and navy personnel who were onboard ship.
You can find help and advice on searching these records in our search tips.
Tags: 1911, alderney, census, complete, guernsey, islands, jersey, man, military, naval, navy, overseas, royal, sark, ships
June 18th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Many, many congratulations to everyone at findmypast on delivering a stable product and handling the traffic smoothly and seemingly effortlessly.
But all your users should remember the analogy of the duck - to progress serenely and smoothly above the waterline, there’s a h*** of a lot of paddling has to go on below the surface.
June 18th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Congratulations on completing the final part of the 1911 census!
However, the final upload has raised a puzzle. Last night (17th) there were 6504 Millingtons recorded. Today there are 6524, though only 15 come from the new areas uploaded. The remaining 5 come from Durham (2), Merioneth, Monmouth and the East Riding of Yorkshire. Are there some bits that were missed off the earlier uploads or is there some other explanation?
June 18th, 2009 at 6:59 am
@geoff - thanks very much! The good news is that we still have a lot of improvements in the pipeline both for the site and enhancements for the data, so there’s a lot of paddling still to go.
@paul: a very good question, and one I don’t have the answer to…yet. A couple might appear from previously submitted transcription corrections (as we do a complete data refresh every time we add more counties) but 5 would seem a lot. Another possible cause is that we are continuously doing background work to iron out data inconsistencies which can occasionally add ancestors into the search indexes. That said, I’ll hush up, ask the data gurus and try to find a detailed explanation.
June 18th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Ian, thanks for looking into this. Is there anywhere we can see submitted (and accepted) transcription corrections?
June 18th, 2009 at 10:44 am
@iantester - I submitted several transcription errors in Jan & March, to date have not received anything either to confirm they were accepted or not. Also is there now a date that a subscription will be avaliable?
June 18th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Hallelujah!!!!! I am so happy the 1911 is now complete. Well done findmypast team. You all deserve medals in my eyes.
Off to search for my missing Channel Islanders.
June 18th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
[...] census website, along with all the other remaining records, and the 1911 census blog claims that the 1911 census is now complete and who am I to argue. I must admit that I started to lose interest after the Sussex data had been [...]
June 19th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Congratulations to the team on completing the project on time. BUT, I am finding it difficult to identify individuals with a common surname in the Overseas Military section. Why was the District field left blank when the military base or location could have been inserted?
As a second best could a list of the bases or ships be put on the site?
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:43 am
Just a gentle nudge for a reply to my two separate postings on this topic on June 18th (why the number of Millingtons rose as it did; Can we see accepted corrections)
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:33 am
@Paul: sorry, there’s no way you can see transcription comments except through our backend systems (you’d need to join our crack development team - could we persuade you?)
In terms of ever-increasing Millingtons, the short answer is that we’re regularly combing the indexes looking for “orphaned” records - this usually means where the RG14 has become mismatched from the RG78 or for some other reason isn’t indexing properly.
As we continue to clean up and identify orphaned records, we’ll periodically (usually monthly) publish a fully updated database which is simply more accurate than the previous version (and incidentally contains the latest batch of transcription corrections).
We’ll continue to do this until we can’t find any orphaned records and can’t think of any more ways to clean the data. Hence you’re likely to find a few more popping up over coming months. The next data release is due in about 10 days so you may find a few more there. You’ll be happy to hear that despite completing the census, our aim is always ongoing improvement!
November 23rd, 2009 at 7:59 am
We are trying to track my Grandfather, Albert Albion ANDREWS, who seeemingly lied aboiut his age ( he was 14 and not 15 ) to go to sea on the tall ships. My Father was born in 1913 in Gosport. Grandad was a GI on Whale Island and wq ehave photos of him in full beard set on deck under some massive guns. Beyond that it is all stories of gunboats in the China Sea etc.
I see there are Naval personnel records now available. How do we access those ?
My cousins and I are scattered from UK to NZ and Australia and we would really like to know more about this man who was so influential on all our lives.