Making the Most of the Census Online Peter Christian East Surrey FHS February 2017

Handout www.spub.co.uk/lectures/census.pdf

Before the Internet Printed & microfiche census indexes Indexes on CD-ROM Images on CD-ROM

England & Wales: Progress 2002 1901 census Ancestry’s 1891 census 2003 1881 census index at FamilySearch 2009 1911 census 2015 1939 Register

Scotland Started 2001 ScotlandsPeople Indexes only 1881 census index 1891 census images added to Scots Origins ScotlandsPeople Indexes only Ancestry Findmypast Refusal to license images

Ireland 1901 and 1911 census only Digitisation started 2005 completed 2010 Census Search Forms (2014) Free at National Archives of Ireland Indexes mirrored at Ancestry & FMP

Commercial Services In-house indexes Licensed census indexes Ancestry Findmypast TheGenealogist Licensed census indexes Genes Reunited (FMP) Roots UK (TheGenealogist) MyHeritage (FMP)

Costs Subscription Pay-per-view Which is better? Free access Main commercial services Pay-per-view ScotlandsPeople Option on other services Which is better? Free access

Free access Remote On-site Free trials on commercial sites FamilySearch (no images) FreeCEN On-site Surrey Libraries: Ancestry & Findmypast Croydon libraries: Ancestry Society of Genealogists National Archives Search Room Free trials on commercial sites

Other Census Indexes Many local transcriptions Links from Genuki county and parish pages Census Finder

The Search Process

The Search Conundrum Simple search Complex search Lots of results Too many to check? Complex search Manageable results But you may exclude near matches

Accuracy: some statistics Detailed statistics: www.spub.co.uk/census/tables.php   A B C surname 1861 3.4% 10.6% 8.8% 1891 43.5% 12.1% 28.4% forename 0.3% 2.9% 9.3% 1.4% 4.0% birthplace 6.0% 19.0% 17.9% 2.4% 10.1%

Name Matching Why the problem? Exact vs fuzzy Wild cards Initial capitals are hard for transcribers I-dots and inkspots No lookup for surnames Exact vs fuzzy Each site has own approach Wild cards Name Thesaurus

Coping with surname errors Familiarise yourself with Proper variants Common mistranscriptions Some errors are fatal Be prepared to browse the images for a locality search without surname! Check Name Thesaurus for variants

Initial Letter Errors (1901) www.spub.co.uk/census/tables/mistaken-letters.pdf

Ages People didn’t always know their age The birth year calculation trap: Age 10 in 1911 census=born April 1900-April 1901 So: Always use range for age or birth year. But also: prone to substantial mistranscription from overwriting

Which is the best site? Wide variation Sites differ in Different microfilms Poorer originals mean less unaninimty Some projects better managed than others Sites differ in search facilities name-matching techniques Be prepared to use a second index

Conclusion All census records are online Problems Benefits Records remain problematic Transcriptions introduce new difficulties Benefits National, not just local, searches Online indexes give multiple ways to search Mostly in multiple indexes A massive improvement over offline access!

Handout www.spub.co.uk/lectures/census.pdf