Genealogy Chat

nudge

It's a real shame as it's the first one that would show all my immediate family, i.e. grandparents on the census with siblings, I still don't have all that information!. Still we will just have to wait and see and hope for the best. Diane

Yes, this was announced a while ago, most discouraging! Joy

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the 1911 census was sent to a Warehouse for safekeeping during WW1. The Warehouse was flooded, and I doubt if it was anyone's priority at that time to do anything about it. As the other Posts say, the 1911 census - nor any other census - was not taken for our benefit. It was used purely for the benefit of 'Forward Planning', a huge statistical exercise. Yes, I would love to see the 1911 released early - but unless some private agency comes up with the money, why should the Government lift a finger? Marjorie

Jane you can't say that 'in this day and age' the papers should be conserved - don't you realise that they are? The damage was done years ago. The records nowadays are stored in strongrooms. Those types of facilities didn't exist back then which why the condition of the census deteriorated. Of course it will be incomplete; all censuses are. Losing loose sheets of paper is clearly easier than losing whacking great enumerators' volumes. If householders chose to fill it in in pencil and spill tea all over it then that's what the transcribers have to work with. No-one has ever suggested it might be released early. The pariliamentary committee gave two specific reasons why it rejected suggestions. The first was that the Householders Schedule promised that returns would be held in 'strictest confidence', that 'no information would be disclosed with regard to individual persons' and that the information would only be used for statistical research. In other words, the implication was that the personal details would *never* be released. The second reason was that if people believe that recent censuses are going to be made available, then they will be less honest when they have to fill them in, or even refuse to do so. Given that a vicar got into trouble in 2001 for refusing to complete that census, it's not the government clutching at straws.

At the risk of getting my head bitten off cos I do agree that it's a shame that, if the articles are accurate, there wont be much information to be obtained from the 1911.... It's worth remembering that just 3 years after the census was taken the country was plunged into a World War. I shouldn't imagine that preserving census papers was high on the list of priorities at that time and it wouldn't take much or very long for them to deteriorate rapidly. The purpose of the census was to obtain headcounts and statistics and the information had probably been collated by that point. By the time the country returned to some degree of normality, they were probably unsalvagable anyway We're probably quite lucky that any of them survived Lou

RE: 1911 census :-( Having just read the magazine Your Family Tree, I am disappointed to read about the 1911 census! I would have expected this in the 19th century, but not the 20th! This just makes me feel really sad. Andrea

Pooh, I'll never be able to do dad's side :o( , Poor dad. AL

I'm a subscriber think it's in the shops next week sometime.

is YFT in the shops? or ar you a subscriber?

Wouldn't you thnk in this day & age they would have done something to save the original papers sooner than this? To you hoping to find people have you tired - local directories or local electoral registers? I have found very helpful in narrowing down the search for a death. Jane

That is a shame, now I'll have to wait untill 2022 for the 1921 to find my GGrandmother and I'm sure she thought she was older than she was - may be we'll all strick it luck with the 1912!?!?!

Hi Diane There go my hopes then, if I am still alive, and doing this, in 2012, to find my GGreatgrandad. I was looking forward to it, how sad does that make me!!!!!! Tried most other avenues to find when he died, so I will just have to think, that maybe he didn't. That makes him 138. Ann :- (

Yes I read that too, what a shame , you would think the later census would be in better condition not worse... Kim

This months magazine has an article by Rod Neep (Archive cd books) regarding the condition of the 1911 census....If what he says is correct we are not going to find what we want on it...The census itself consists of original householders papers, not the enumerators books, a lot of it is missing and much is in a deteriorating state. He says we will not get it released sooner...None of it has been filmed and it would be a multi million pound excercise to do so....An interesting read....Diane