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

2. Handout

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

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

5. 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

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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

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

11. The Search Process

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

13. Accuracy: some statistics
Detailed statistics: 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%

14. 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

15. 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

16. Initial Letter Errors (1901)

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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!

20. Handout