PolandBorderSurnames-L Archives

From: "Tina Ellis" <>
Subject: [PBS] England Census website a crashing success
Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 08:58:53 -0800

For those of you researching in England from Karla:


>From:
>To:
>Subject: Fw: Census website a crashing success
>Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 07:14:53 -0800
>
>Hi Tina,
>I thought this article might be of interest to the PolandBorderSurnames
>list, but thought you should be the one to post it.
>
>Karla Walters
>
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1737000/1737861.stm
>
>Census website a crashing success
>
>The first online census in England has crashed on its first day after 1.2
>million people tried to search for relatives.
>
>The 1901 census for England and Wales provides a unique snapshot of
>Edwardian Britain.
>
>But such was the excitement surrounding the project, the website ground
>to
>a halt for several hours soon after its launch while technicians worked
>feverishly to improve access.
>
>Those who were able to search for ancestors, were able to find out
>details
>about their lives including where they lived, their age and even their
>mental state.
>
>The Public Record Office says it will be invaluable for people all over
>the
>world who want to trace their British forbearers.
>
>Census material is only released after 100 years, so these are the first
>public census records of the 20th Century.
>
>They contain information on 32 million citizens, including the infant
>Queen
>Mother and comedian Charlie Chaplin.
>
>The publication of the census and index has been welcomed by the Society
>of
>Genealogists.
>
>Librarian Sue Gibbons said: "It's going to have as much impact as the
>1881
>census which was put onto CD Rom and that revolutionised family research.
>It's wonderful to have an online facility.
>
>"I think they've now found they are a victim of their own success because
>so many people want to log on."
>
>Margaret Brennand, from the Public Record Office, told BBC Radio 4's
>Today
>programme that over the past 10 to 15 years interest in family history
>had
>soared.
>
>She said the fact that information from the 1901 census will be available
>at the click of a button will make a huge difference to researchers.
>
>"A huge amount of work has gone into taking the original census forms,
>scanning them, creating digital images and a comprehensive index to
>enable
>people to search for more than 32 million individuals living in England
>and
>Wales in 1901," she added.
>
>A spelling mistake, perhaps down to poor hand-writing, lists the Queen
>Mother's middle name as Angelia, instead of Angela.
>
>As eight-month-old Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, she is listed as living in
>Walden,
>Herts.
>
>Silent screen star Charles Chaplin is listed as a "music hall artiste"
>while legendary cricketer WG Grace is described as a "physician and
>secretary of the London County Cricket Club".
>
>Famous names
>
>Other famous names among the pages include French painter Claude Monet,
>War
>of the Worlds author HG Wells, Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien and
>nurse Florence Nightingale.
>
>The data, which has taken more than two years to digitalise, is expected
>to
>be particularly popular with people from overseas trying to trace their
>English and Welsh ancestry.
>
>They may find out more than they wanted to know about their relatives.
>
>Edwardians thought nothing of logging that someone was a lunatic, an
>imbecile or just plain feeble-minded.
>
>A basic search of the site will be free of charge but to download a
>census
>image will cost 75p per page.
>
>The initiative is part of the PRO's wider effort, Census Online, which
>aims
>to digitise all the earlier censuses before 1901.
>
>The PRO has already started work on the 1881 and 1891 censuses and
>eventually plans to go back as far as 1841.
>
>Studying 19th Century census data has previously required a visit to a
>local record office or library to find the returns for the local area.
>
>Alternatively it meant a visit to the Family Records Centre in London,
>which houses the census returns for England and Wales from 1841 to 1891.


_________________________________________________________________
Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail.
http://www.hotmail.com

This thread:

• [PBS] England Census website a crashing success by "Tina Ellis" <>