Federation Of Family History Societies

1911 Census goes live

Today (13 January 2009) the 1911 Census has gone live on the Internet at http://www.1911census.co.uk/. The site is a pay per view site in partnership between FindMyPast and The National Archives.

The release is ahead of the usual release date of the first working day of the year following the 100th anniversary of the taking of the census; for the 1911 this would have been the 3rd of January 2012.

The 1911 Census also differs from the previous censuses in that it is the original householder's schedules that have survived and not the enumerators' books we are used to. As a consequence of this the amount of data is greatly increased and the paper copies are stored on 2 kilometres of shelving, approximately 8 times larger than previous censuses.

From today there will be a staggered release of the information in the 1911 census. This will include images and transcription data, but with sensitive data held back, in line with the Information Commissioner's recent ruling. From 3 January 2012 the public will have full access to the entire 1911 census, including the information not accessible in 2009. Researchers anywhere in the world will be able to search across the fields of the census by name, address or The National Archives catalogue reference, and download high-resolution digital images.

Also available are the enumerators' summary sheets which give information and statistics on their locality. These will be added to the site when all the household schedules are complete.

For more information click here