Free Ancestry Access to 1911 Census this Weekend (General)
by Jefff 
, West London, Middlesex, Friday, May 11, 2012, 20:16 (4574 days ago)
"Ancestry.co.uk" are giving entirely free no-strings access to the 1911 England & Wales Census all this weekend, started already (now) & right thro' until end of Monday 14th May 2012. You can search for and view the original Census Documents and save their images to your pc hard-drive for future use.
This link should find the start page
http://www.ancestry.co.uk/1911?o_xid=51001&o_lid=51001&o_sch=Email
As with my previous posts of this ilk, please be assured altho' you do need to register this is very quick and only involves giving your name & email address. You will not be asked for subscription or creditcard details etc to gain these images, altho if you do stray into other areas of the site that will provoke such questions.
As I said last time, I'm NOT a member of Ancestry and have never given them any payment whatsoever. However I did register online some months ago; this I recommend as I receive occasional email newsletters, sometimes warning of free-access such as this, plus I can create and store my family trees on their site. Also despite them limiting the information given you can perform limited searches which can sometimes be a usefull guide. Ancestry is also available free-of-charge in most if not all Public Librairies. Whether overseas researchers can register with Ancestry.co.uk and take advantage of this free access I do not know, worth a try tho !
Happy Hunting !
PS Please read the Census entries and transcribe them yourself, my own albeit limited experiences suggest the Ancestry transcription system is imaginatively inaccurate.
1911 CENSUS
by m p griffiths , Saturday, May 12, 2012, 08:40 (4574 days ago) @ Jefff
'please read the Census entries and transcribe them yourself, my own albeit limited experiences suggest the Ancestry transcription system is imaginatively inaccurate'
The 1911 census is different to all other census returns before. Extra information includes, No. of rooms, years married, children born alive, children living. The last column with personal details (Infirmity) i.e. deaf etc., has been blocked out. The actual census page (A4 size and landscape) has completed and signed by an occupant of the house, (usually the Head) followed on the next page -
by a Return Schedule sheet filled out by the Enumerator - with these headings....
Census
England & Wales
1911
Schedule
No. of Registration District:
No. of Sub-Registration District:
No. of Enumeration District:
Name of Head of Family or Separate Occupier:
Postal Address:
The Enumerator's references cross-check with the 1911 Census Summary Books - also on Ancestry.
- therefore unless your ancestor had 'lousy writing or spelt their surname a little differently' - errors
are 'limited'. The only slight variation sometimes, is the address filled out by the Occupier, and the Postal Address filled in by the Enumerator.
This free access coincides with the launch of Ancestry's fully searchable 1911 census by 'County', (36 million records). Before this, to search for anyone in Gloucestershire was tedious, and the 1911 Census Summary Book was the only option.
1911 CENSUS
by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 02:26 (4573 days ago) @ m p griffiths
Hi MPG,
Thanks for your reply and helpful information which is very interesting. In fact I'm only visiting the Forum having spent the last few hours downloading 1911 Census forms, and I'm afraid I have two questions which relate to points you mention.
1. Yes I agree in principle that the accuracy of the transcription should be better than previous Census releases, especially as the forms are a more spacious format and are perhaps in better physical condition than earlier ones. As you have far higher experience than me reading them, plus your knowledge of their process, I can only bow to your belief that in the main they are generally more accurate. However that isn't my impression at all.
eg this evening I've searched out seven forms only in practise for tomorrow's "Big Push". I try not to read too much to save time during the free download period. However I've just read a Monmouthshire Census form for Chepstow which has been transcribed (ie the tabulated entry shown below the actual image) to read the following places of birth against two brothers only 2 years apart in age: "Heryard Vonachurch" and below that "Henfield Conchurch". Both sets of neat albeit joined handwriting clearly show the exact same words, very easily read as "Hereford" (a local county city of course, not obscure village) and "Kenderchurch" (less obvious but barely over the County boundary and still on the Wye). One of the brothers has been named "Herry" instead of the easily read & I'd have thought more likely Henry.
I estimate in my personal experience such easily avoidable errors occur in at least 10% of forms. This isn't intended as an argument to your post, I'm just stating what I find.
Maybe it's just my renowned bad luck, but even my very limited experience tells me they're still making too many avoidable gaffs, most of which would be easily avoided by transcribers having a basic local knowledge - or as is more likely in this age by being done using better computers which not only recognise & read individual characters but can interprete them into actual names, for example. I say this as an engineer with 30+ years experience and in my business such socalled errors just wouldn't happen. Now if it turns out that Ancestry rely on human volunteers then I guess that's fair enough, although I doubt this & hope not judging by their Subscription rates.
What I find a lot more worrying tho' is that when they first started releasing 1911 transcripts, according to some wellknown FH magazine articles Ancestry were not correcting such "errors" when reported and have stated they don't intend to either.
I do hope this last statement isn't true ?.
2. You mention how the Census forms are blanked out over the "Infirmity" column. My prime reason for posting tonight was to ask whether this is only being done while the Free access is available ?. I don't recall seeing this overly obtrusive white block on the few Forms I've seen on the Library Ancestry pc. When the 1911 Census was first released last year I read and agreed with comments as to how this new element would be of great interest, and given the timescale personally I cannot see how this would be considered politically incorrect to show them except in most extreme cases perhaps. Do you know why this is being done, is it the "norm" for all the various 1911 Sites or just Ancestry or just this weekend ?.
As ever I look forward to any views particularly re the second point, thanks in advance. Alternatively I'll look it up in a day or three as I would normally do so.
Hope you all enjoy the summer while it lasts, rain's due Monday night, hoorah for the hosepipe ban !
1911 CENSUS (Transcribing and accuracy)
by m p griffiths , Sunday, May 13, 2012, 09:01 (4573 days ago) @ Jefff
Personally, I don't have a problem with Ancestry's Premium Subscription of £107.40 a year which equates to around 30 pence a day. It keeps the 'old grey cells' working and helps FOD members along the way...
Global Gazette 2007 which quotes the information on the 1911 census returns from the National Archives...
.....
Why will the Infirmity column be redacted for everyone?
. The information on the face of the document that is personally sensitive
. Most of this information could be found in the Infirmity column (this will be redacted - blocked out)
. Personally sensitive information in any other areas will be redacted on a case-by-case basis
---------
(The Infirmity Column Reveal - Jan 2012 - i.e. 100 year rule).
On 1911 Census.co.uk - this is what they say
'Transcription and Accuracy
Transcribing the census is a massive exercise. Every single digitised document has to be read and transcribed by hand, a process that results in over seven billion keystrokes over the course of the project.
With this volume of keystrokes, errors are inevitable etc. etc.
The Challenges of the 1911 census
The 1911 census poses particular problems. The core documents from which they transcribers work are the original household pages rather than the enumerators' summary books, as in previous censuses. This means they have to decipher the handwriting of eight million different people - a challenging task.
Accuracy levels
The National Archives set an accuracy threshold of 98.5 per cent, and at launch etc. etc.'
1911 CENSUS
by cmfenton , Ferndown, Dorset, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 10:12 (4573 days ago) @ m p griffiths
While I have no personal experience of this, findmypast.co.uk now claim to publish the redacted infirmity column (and show examples), unlike Ancestry who still have it blanked out.
1911 CENSUS
by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, May 13, 2012, 16:43 (4572 days ago) @ cmfenton
Thanks again guys for your replies, again very interesting. I really didn't realise the transcriptions were still done by people, sorry but I find that very hard to entirely believe. That said Marilyn if you speak from a position of personal experience as you appear to then of course I do believe you. It's just that given the type and multitude of this task I would have thought it odds-on in this day & age that computerised automated optical-text-recognition techniques would play a major role, just as they are so clearly used for the British Newspaper Archives site's search engine for example. One machine could process hundreds or even thousands of census forms an hour, 24/7. It's possible people are indeed used as a more economical alternative, but in this case I would expect that from economy of labour viewpoint (something I have considerable experience in especially from a worldwide viewpoint) those people are perhaps just able to read the text and may have a basic grasp of modern English/American, but they do not have the knowledge or time to be conversant with British names & placenames ?.
My interpretation of the Ancestry statement you quoted is that the whole process is indeed automated for many logical reasons, but with people being used for some of the trickier transcriptions, as final adjudicators if you like. From both a business sense and a legal sense this fits the statement; just as a sausage could be said to be handmade in Norfolk if it is produced by machine in Denmark from Russian beef but is then machinewrapped and hand-labelled in the UK.
When I first started this hobby less than 2 years ago wherever I went I found text books & magazines warning against the LDS site for their inaccuracies; however given that's a free site then I'm certainly not complaining at all, far from it !. However in my few forays into the very basic public Library Ancestry site looking up routine Census's I've seen examples where their smallprint actually quotes the LDS, I believe as their source reference. # If this is so then I suggest thats not a great selling point, but more worryingly are these LDS people those referred to in the Ancestry statement, aka a volunteer (I believe?) research service who do not always have the greatest accuracy of transcription ?.
Re the subscription costs then yes, on the face of it 30p a day isn't much at all from an individual's viewpoint, it's certainly a far better & more constructive alternative than buying puzzle magazines etc. I am also well aware of the great help you provide for others and thats truly appreciated, thankyou. I don't think your cells need worry about going grey never mind old for some while yet !
(That said the higher level subscriptions are currently more than I can afford, and no I don't smoke and currently cannot drink either or for that matter live particularly well indeed in any respect. We only had the one son as couldn't afford another, and at 16 we find he's rather pricey to run !! ;-)).
Having been enticed to buy a few of the popular FH magazines, usually on the basis of their "free" census/PRs cds that can seem to offer so much but often fail to deliver in any meaningfull degree, I would agree subscribing is far better value than that; especially as many of their articles and often the cd content can be found in library books or online for those with the time & patience to hunt them down. My point was that many many such subscribers worldwide clearly make for good business for Ancestry etc and perhaps they in return could offer better accuracy on what are clearly very poor transcriptions - I have no problem with occasional errors but my very limited usage keeps throwing up real silly whoppers. I just hope that when such whoppers are reported that they do in fact amend their database, altho as said earlier I don't know if they do.
Ultimately of course it's up to the individuals to spend their time & money how they like.
Finally, you mentioned the Census Summary Books, my first dealing with them. Last night in the Ancestry 1911 Census I found an ancestor within a summary book, but there was no separate Census form entry as I also expected to find so I couldnt find his 3 housemates. I searched high & lo but no luck. I read the site smallprint but the site's definition of the Summary Book actually seemed to relate to the actual Census forms themselves. Is this a possible event, I presume there must? be cases of the odd Census forms not surviving any more, is this the case here, or do Summary books not necessarily relate to (ie summarise) the actual Census forms themselves.
Thanks CMF, I'll be revisiting the Find My Past site etc if & when I look to subscribe. If they MUST redact the Forms then why oh why can they do so using a matching cream colour, call me sad or fussy but such things are important to me as they are real "living" links with my past and not just sets of data.
Moving on, its a great day so far, I'm no F1 fan but from a British engineering viewpoint it's nice to see Sir Frank Williams' team get their first win for some time and on his 70th birthday !. Shame the commentary of the Glorious Glosters cricket is suffering as many ailments as me but at least we seem to be winning, (as we did before losing t'other day!).
Summer's still with us AND today I've learnt a new word "redacted". Look out for it in further posts (after I've looked it up!).
PS
UPDATE RE TRANSCRIPTIONS, just spent a long time searching out another ancestor, living up North with relatives it seems. The form is neatly written and quite clearly says "GEORGE, Bro' in law, MALE"; he's paired alongside his probable(tbd) wife "Maud, Sis'r in law, FEMALE". Yet the transcription describes them both as Sisters in Law !!?? Honestly I'm not looking for these errors but ?
# I see today I read "Ancestry.com 2011". Have they bought out LDS or somesuch ?. Just a thought.. one day I'll look up some of my older Census Form images to see if they still mention LDS.
1911 CENSUS
by mcowan , Monday, May 14, 2012, 14:11 (4572 days ago) @ Jefff
From my experience I will say that there are pros and cons with all family history sites - Ancestry you can subscribe for 1 month at a time, which is a great saving over a 6 monthly or yearly subscription with findmypast. Findmypast has, I think, a better set out census but I think they have more transcription errors which they do correct when informed. Ancestry has generally got more records. Sometimes a record can be found on one site and not on the other. FOD transcribers are volunteers and they read and consider what they are transcribing whereas Ancestry and Findmypast transcriptions are just transcribed quickly and without any great thought so therefore more errors will be found. We as personal family historians have the time (hopefully) to dig a bit deeper and it is suprising what can be found if you can search outside the box. I recently found some census returns that had been transcribed under a totally different name because of a transcription error that was easy for me to read (I looked under the village and read through the names). So keep searching and you may be lucky but you do need the time and patience! Good luck!
Anne
1911 CENSUS
by Jefff , West London, Middlesex, Sunday, May 20, 2012, 14:54 (4565 days ago) @ mcowan
Thanks Anne for your helpful reply, particularly your views re the various subscription sites. The only reason I've leaned towards Ancestry is the free access available at the local Libraries, albeit limited, plus as you say they do seem to have the greatest records. You are quite correct wrt the FOD etc transcribers using their local knowledge to help ensure accuracy, which is great, but what does get my goat is the ability of Ancestry in my limited experience to get the simplest record so wrong. The number of Marry's instead of Harry's I've found are an obvious example. Last week I was excited to find an ancestor who had been a "ship steward", great I thought (I'm an engineer). However the 1911 Census form in question showed this person to be living with a Farmer, in rural Longhope. Yes the Form clearly read "Shepherd" !!.
Further to my post of last week I have today found the following article from 2006 within the website of a wellknown British PRs company, which gives some credence to my thoughts:
"??? Genealogy Supplies’ online genealogy data service has taken off, and they are striving to make their indexes as accurate as possible, largely helped by the UKIndexer project www.ukindexer.co.uk. This is part of a vigorous, many layered, checking system to ensure a high degree of accuracy.
Transcripts and indexes
Although they started out with a volunteer surname indexing project, the census pieces are now fully transcribed in India with good results. The transcription stage is followed by an initial check to sample the data, which is then rejected if the error rate is unacceptable.
The data is then examined by a series of sophisticated, custom written software programs which look for anomalies. Initially these look at names and their frequency, flagging unusual looking entries. The flagged entries are checked and corrected by the ??? Genealogy Supplies trained in-house indexing team and the end result is used to create the name indexes. These are released in advance of the full transcripts, which still have a considerable amount of work to be done.
Further customised software examines the fully transcribed data, which contains all the major fields including the occupation. This software looks at details such as place names, relationships and occupations, again flagging any entries that look dubious. These are then checked by their in-house team assisted by over 4,000 volunteer indexers who have signed up to help at www.ukindexer.co.uk."
http://www.genealogyreviews.co.uk/ftmMar06uki.htm
Please note I am not promoting this company in any way, however it strikes me that their multilayered process is rather more effective than the system Ancestry use, which I'm sure is similar wrt their using staff from countries who do not fully recognise or understand British names and their context.
With regard my previously posted guess that the transcriptions would be initially done by machine, I mentioned this issue to my longsuffering wife. She is an accountant, she tells me in the last few weeks she's had to contact banks who are incorrectly removing extra £000s from her company's account. It transpires my wife has a new clerk who writes cheques very neatly & clearly; however her "1"s have long leading strokes which make the automated readers think they're "4"s !, rather like the Victorian "H"s and "W"s which Ancestry often think are "M"s.
1911 CENSUS
by mcowan , Sunday, May 20, 2012, 15:45 (4565 days ago) @ Jefff
The best mistake I've found so far is where my great grandfather's occupation was described as Horester! (Forester of course).