Genealogy Chat

Mark The 1911 census was stored in a warehouse somewhere and was hit by a bomb during WW2. The subsequent fire meant there was water damage, and the rodent depredation 'just happened' - I doubt if anyone ever went near the warehouse from one year's end to the next. The government had more important things to worry about during WW2 than whether some obscure documents had got wet or not. (Sorry, I should have said 2 million PEOPLE, not 2 million households, above) OC

pardon my ignorance........but what do you mean by water / rodent damaged? what happened?.......all of the previous census seem to be ok, apart from missing records etc which can be expected.

Mark The 1911 census is in a very poor state - water damaged and rodent damaged. Or not, depending on which version you believe. Every single sheet needs to be stabilised BEFORE it can be digitalised - this takes some weeks, a process which cannot be hurried. Each sheet (and there are some 39 million of them) then has to be scanned AND digitalised - I believe there are technical problems with this which they are working on. Then, to be any use at all to us, it has to be indexed, again a time consuming job. I understand that the government have set aside a sum of £10million for this, which hardly seems enough to me - and that is why it is being done abroad, not here. Even the most optimistic estimates concede that 5% of the 1911 is irretrievable - that is nearly 2 million households which will not appear in the 1911 census. OC

its a pure guess but cant they just be scanned and put online? as for the 100 year regulation, lets hope the government changes it in the future!

I Know the answer Why don't we all offer to start transcribing the 1911 census now so that it will be ready on time. That way we'll have the information now and can share it with each other! Oh well it was only a thought!! lo.

thanks for that Ann, do you have the full website?

lets agree to disagree! i see your points, and there valid, but nevertheless im impatient! lol

But it has to be a matter of principle, doesn't it? Census information is taken under duress and in return the Govt promised confidentiality for 100 years. I think it would be a very dangerous move for any government to renege on that promise. As the information was never collected for the benefit of genealogists anyway, then I look upon it as a bonus, not a right. Yes, it would be wonderful if the 1911 was available to us, but it isn't, so we just have to find other ways round it. I am old enough to have been researching when the 1871,1881,1891 and 1901 census wasn't available either. I still managed to research though. OC

Well, i think every 10 years is too long, i understand why the 10 year procedure is in place, purely for data protection, confidentiality etc and if there are still people alive from the census'. However, i do believe there are far more genealogists then there are people wanting the census to be still hiden!! As for Australia, well, thats there policy, not much i can do about that!

Mark Are you saying you think we should have National Census taken more often than every ten years? What would be the point? I am just grateful I do not live in Australia, where their census is shredded immediately the statistics have been abstracted! OC

Thats a real shame,........so people are basically going to have to wait another 5 years for answers. ........Every 10 years is crazy.

Mark As far as I know there ARE no ongoing debates - the matter is closed and the present Government is unlikely to reopen it. OC

how are the debates to bring the 1911 census forward going????