1911 Census - when will Ancestry get it?

[Parmesan]

this is from Ancestry

Early Release of the 1911 UK Census

Ancestry is committed to launching new historical record collections online for our members, and also selected collections perhaps already available elsewhere which our members have expressed a strong interest in accessing on our site. Our current plan is to launch onsite the 1911 Census Enumerator Books, which we are confident will be of terrific use to members, helping them to cross-track their ancestors through censuses, telephone book, military records etc during the early part of the 20th century.

Just the enumerator books

[stanmapstone]

You can an see example of the Enumerator's Summary Book at http://www.1911census.co.uk/content/default.aspx?r=24&152


Stan

[Parmesan]

That should be very useful in the absence of the actual return.

I think I got most of my returns when I had access for six months 

[millymcb]

They look quite interesting... especially for someone as nosey as me

Milly

[andycand]

Hi

Looking at the example  it looks like the Enumerators Books are different to earlier censuses, they only show the head of the household (surname only?), the address and the number of males and females. its a one line entry that does not give any useful information. You need the actual household schedule to get all the names, ages place of birth etc.

Andy

[stanmapstone]

From the 1911 Census on, the data was put on to punched cards directly from the Householder's Schedules. There are no enumerators books as in the previous censuses, where the enumerator copied the data from the schedules into the books, which is what you now see. The original census schedules, up to 1901, were destroyed .

Stan

[Parmesan]

Destroyed?
 

[Nick29]

The release of the England & Wales 1911 census has actually destroyed a lot of myths about how the census was taken.

Many people think that emumerators went from door to door filling in the books from questions asked, and they think this explains mis-transcriptions due to people being mis-heard.

The real truth is that every census has been held in the same way - census schedules left with householders to fill in; census forms collected; census data copied from the schedules into the enumerator's returns books.  The questions asked have varied from census to census, but the way the census is held has never changed.

The only difference was that the householder schedules for the 1911 census were not destroyed, and have been made available for public view.   This is the first time that people have been able to see their ancestors' handwriting on a census (even though sometimes it's not clear who filled the form in).

Getting back to the Ancestry 1911 debate, I think Ancestry are reluctant to spend a lot of money on giving the 1911 census to its subscribers, because many of them will have already accessed the information via Brightsolid, so it's not an urgency for them.

[stanmapstone]

Destroyed?
 

The original householder's schedules, 1841-1901, were destroyed many years ago, along with the enumerator's memorandum books, but the enumerator's books, which are what we now refer to as the census returns, were kept.

Stan