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Census Lookups General Lookups => Census Lookup and Resource Requests => Census and Resource Discussion => Completed Census Requests => Topic started by: Matari on Monday 02 February 09 11:54 GMT (UK)
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I can’t quite put my finger on it but there is something about the release of the 1911 census that I don’t like.
Is it that a national archive has been sold to a third party for profit purposes? Profit that could have stayed within the establishment. (11.4 million Searches in the first week). Is it that the third party is making this information available on a pay as you view basis and not to subscription? Is it that the information is incomplete? Would it not have been better for all if the launch was deferred until all areas were available? Is it that the third party has sole online publishing rights which seriously disadvantage advanced researchers who are members of other ancestry sites? Is it because the honorary 100 year rule has been disregarded? It is conceivable that there are people alive today that appear in these records.
Perhaps it’s all of these things, but then I suppose no one else is bothered so it’s all right then. Isn’t it?
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Hi Matari,
Welcome to RootsChat :)
I think you'll find that most of these points have been discussed here
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,352985.0.html
and on other topics on RootsChat.
regards,
Bob
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Hi Matari, and welcome to Roots Chat.
I'm afraid you have a few misconceptions........
The National Archive has not been sold off. Whereas all the previous censuses have been microfilmed in the past, the 1911 census has only ever existed on paper, so to make it available online, someone has had to photograph, digitise, transcribe and index the entire collection which takes nearly a mile of shelving to house in physical form. This operation was beyond the current capabilities of the National Archive, so a company called Brightsolid, which owns (amongst others) the Find My Past website was invited to collaborate with the NA to do this work. In return, Brightsolid has the rights to operate a Pay As You Go access facility, and it has sole rights to the data for an agreed period. Later on, other companies will be able to access this data too. Obviously Brightsolid want to make a profit on the money that it has spent doing a lot of work to make the 1911 census available online.
The "100 year rule" that you refer to was only passed in 1921 with the Census Act, so it does not apply to the 1911 census. However, certain personal details (like infirmities and disablities) will not be readable until after 2011.
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Can I just add that the total number of schedules printed for the 1911 census of England and Wales was 10,064,500, which included 9,146,000 ordinary schedules.
Stan
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Stan
What's an 'Ordinary' schedule?
Carol
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An ordinary schedule was a Household Schedule, which had spaces for 15 names, there were others with spaces for 40 names, and others for 100 names for Institutions, hotels, schools etc. There were apparently 22 different kinds of Schedule provided.
Stan
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Oh right !!!
You learn something new every day- especially on Rootschat ;D
Thanks Stan,
Carol
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Thank you Nick 29 for your comments. If as you say the 1911 census details were acquired by Brightsolid would you be able to tell me on what basis this transaction was conducted. Were other companies invited to tender? Did National Archives receive payment for our records, if so how much? Why couldn’t National Archives do the transcriptions knowing it would be guaranteed to provide more than adequate financial returns? If it was beyond their expertise, which I doubt, could they not have employed a third party to do it for them? At a time of dire economic times I would have thought a little bit of extra revenue would have been appreciated. It’s just the idea of some commercial enterprise acquiring public information and then charging us for the use of it that annoys me. Obviously they want to capitalize on their investment but to make it a pay as you view facility only is a real killer for those like me who would want to research a couple of hundred individuals and others in Scotland where a similar situation exists. I was quite clear in my earlier posting that the 100 year rule was only honorary but is this the only census that has been released in less than 100 years? Why?
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I'm afraid that I have no connection with either Brightsolid or the National Archives, so any questions regarding the arrangement between them must be addressed to them. You are only being charged to access the 1911 census information online - if you want to go to Kew, you can browse the 1911 census to your heart's content completey free. It was decided to release the 1911 census information early after several challenges under the Freedom of Information Act.
If you think that the NA had the facilities and expertise to successfully provide the internet access themselves, you obviously were not around to witness the fiasco that surrounded the launch of the 1901 census (which they also had help with !). At least this time people are able to gain access to the data, albeit at a price that may not be palatable.
P.S. You'll find some answers here (http://www.1911census.co.uk/Content/default.aspx?r=117)
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Matari
We are very lucky to be able to view them before the original date of 2012.
They will be on a subscription website later this year(possibly by the summer)
So if you object to paying a few punds to view them-far cheaper than the 1901 was when it was released-then people do have the option to wait till later this year.
I have paid to see my direct ancestors but will wait to view any stragglers until later ;D
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Thank you Nick 29 for your comments. If as you say the 1911 census details were acquired by Brightsolid would you be able to tell me on what basis this transaction was conducted. Were other companies invited to tender?
Yes, The contract was put out for tender.
Did National Archives receive payment for our records, if so how much? Why couldn’t National Archives do the transcriptions knowing it would be guaranteed to provide more than adequate financial returns? If it was beyond their expertise, which I doubt, could they not have employed a third party to do it for them?
That is exactly what they did by putting the contract out for tender
At a time of dire economic times I would have thought a little bit of extra revenue would have been appreciated. It’s just the idea of some commercial enterprise acquiring public information and then charging us for the use of it that annoys me. Obviously they want to capitalize on their investment but to make it a pay as you view facility only is a real killer for those like me who would want to research a couple of hundred individuals and others in Scotland where a similar situation exists.
If you are so bothered about it why not take a trip to the National Archives (Kew) there you can view the census free of charge.
You only have to pay when using the online facilities paid for by the massive investment of brightsolid.
If you wish to use the census in the comfort of your home then it is only right you pay for that privilege.
I was quite clear in my earlier posting that the 100 year rule was only honorary but is this the only census that has been released in less than 100 years? Why?
Sorry but you are wrong.
Only six out of the 15 pre-1910 United Kingdom censuses were closed for 100 years. The details of nine out of 15 were released after less than 90 years. The average closure period for censuses in Britain is 80 years.
Given that the release of returns after 50 to 80 years was the practice in the first half of the last century, that no confidentiality time period was given on the 1911 census and that the Lord Chancellor's Instrument No. 12 of 1966 was 55 years away at that point, I would be very surprised if anyone who participated in that census really believed that their return would be held for exactly 100 years and not a day less.
Cheers
Guy
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Thank you everyone, it looks like I stand corrected on a number of points. A trip to London is not a possibility due to expense and location problems. I still feel the powers that be have missed a great revenue opportunity. Where can I find out how much was paid to the nations coffers or is more likely that we gave it away at advantageous terms to Brightsolid. I think I'll wait until there is a subscription service available as my ancestors aren't going anywhere. Thanks again everyone it's nice to see that you are all on message. ;)
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it's nice to see that you are all on message. ;)
Hello Matari,
Guy is more 'on message' on this subject than most of the rest of us......it is because of him that we are able to see the 1911 census now rather than having to wait until 2012. http://www.rootschat.com/links/05go/
Jennifer
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I don't know whether or not I'm on the right thread, but here goes anyway.
There are three things currently puzzling me about the 1911 census site:-
1. When I look at My Records' for the entries already downloaded, there are 3 boxes - one of which says 'Update' but this does not appear currently to do anything when activated. What does this box do? Is this how we will get to see the extra pages (such as enumerators summaries) in due course?
2. When I looked at the site's blog over the weekend there was an item dated, I think, 31 January. That no longer appears. This morning when I looked again the last entry was for 29 January, but under the archive list of months on the right of the page there was the month of February listed so I clicked on it and an entry for this month appeared - something to do with the slow running of the site due to codes used in activating some unspecified feature(s). Now that entry, along with the month of February in the archive list, has also disappeared. Does anyone know what is happening both with the blog and the main site?
3. Not a puzzle, but does anyone know when the additional pages (including the enumerators summaries) are to be activated?
Thanks for reading this.
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...... Where can I find out how much was paid to the nations coffers or is more likely that we gave it away at advantageous terms to Brightsolid.......
I would think that the NA and Brightsolid would be a good place to start. What makes you think that the NA "gave it away" ? It's not the first time that the NA has worked with an oustide contractor in order to launch a census, and probably won't be the last.
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TNA have information about licensing on their website
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/business/licensing.htm (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/business/licensing.htm)
Mean_genie
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Now I don't like spending any more than the next person.......but I can understand the 1911 Census charges.
It must have cost a fortune to transcribe and digitise all the pages, not to mention developing and keeping the database running. I doubt that cost is something the National Archive (ie the tax payer..) could have justified. The company have invested a lot of money and I don't think it unreasonable they should be asking for payment. It's a little expensive at the moment but I perhaps that is partly to keep the demand down while they get up and running. The cost will apparently come down for those who wait ;D..
And it is a British Company so not only is the National Archive getting income from their licence but the taxman will get his share of the fees too...
And - for a new database I don't think it's holding up too badly and there is actually quite a lot you can find out for free (more than many other databases).
It would be great if it was free of course...but so would a lot of things ;D ;D ;D
Milly
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1. When I look at My Records' for the entries already downloaded, there are 3 boxes - one of which says 'Update' but this does not appear currently to do anything when activated. What does this box do? Is this how we will get to see the extra pages (such as enumerators summaries) in due course?
Update is the box you click on if you have a correction to tell them about.
Ie they've spelt a name wrong or put an age down incorrectly.
Sadly you only get to that box if you've viewed either the full image or a transcript.
So at the moment,even if we know if there's an error it is quite difficult(or expensive!) to tell them!
Carol