SOG-UK-L Archives

From: Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake <>
Subject: [SoG] 1891 census facsimiles
Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 10:06:34 +0100

Recently on the LANCSGEN mailing list, Paul Gaskell of the Oxfordshire
FHS published a report from when he had attended a presentation from S&N
at the Bucks FHS Open Day. Paul reported that S&N had said that they had
paid a lot of money for exclusive rights to publish the 1891 census CEBs
on CD-ROM. He was challenged on this on the Lancsgen list by Rod Neep,
and then apologised for his error. He sent me a copy of his apology and
I have replied to it. Since this is of interest to all family historians
and genealogists I repeat it here:

>Rod Neep wrote .......
>
>Sorry Paul, but this simply cannot be true. S&N cannot have paid thousands
>of pounds to get *exclusive* rights to produce scanned images of the
>nineteenth century censuses on CD.
>
>Those are in the public domain, and *anyone* can reproduce the images from
>the films of the census enumerators books without permission from the PRO.
>
>
>Rod
>
>Thank you for clarifying the position on that. I've reviewed the my notes of
>the lecture that I attended, and I think that I got confused by the
>distinction between payment for rights, and payment to buy the material
>itself, whether on microfilm, microfiche or whatever. I would like to offer
>my sincere apologies to those on the list that I inadvertently misled,
>although I did report in good faith what I believed I'd heard at the time.
>
>I would stress that I stand by the remainder of my message - namely that I
>believe that the S&N 1891 census CDs will prove to be a worthwhile buy for
>researchers with Lancashire interests.
>
Thanks for the apology Paul, but on your conclusion maybe, but maybe
not. When I attended the 'roadshow' that the PRO put on at an Oxford FHS
meeting before the launch of the 1901 project, the person from the PRO
(Margaret Brennand) was quite clear that the earnings the PRO makes from
the 1901 online census project were to be put back into indexing and
presenting facsimiles of the other 19th century censuses online. Since I
am sure Paul Gaskell was at that meeting, I confess to being a little
surprised that this message escaped his memory and that he did not
bother to cross-check with the PRO before posting his original message.
It seems to me that researchers in Lancashire will have a choice to
make.

1) Buy an unindexed CD-ROM of facsimile CEB (Census Enumeration Book)
pages from S&N or possibly any other vendor, or:

2) Acquire the images online (or possibly on CD-ROM) indexed from the
PRO.

There are three other factors that researchers may wish to consider as
well.

a) Imaging technology
=====================
Any commercial enterprise producing facsimile images on CD-ROM will be
scanning a microform analogue film of the CEB pages. As we know, some of
these films are pretty dire already, and analogue to digital conversion
will make things worse. The approach I understand the PRO plans to use
is direct digital imaging of the original CEBs. This has to lead to
higher quality images than scanning the analogue films.

b) Timetable
============
Neither the PRO nor any commercial vendor has given a committed
timetable of when they will do what. Call me an old cynic (and you may
be right), but I prefer to buy from an organisation that is prepared to
make that commitment. I shall for example be using the online 1901
census because the PRO have committed to having it available by January
2002. I know the initial index will contain a lot of errors, but by the
time it is published I am sure that reviews will have appeared
suggesting strategies for handling that.

c) Indexing
===========
In my view the best people to index a county census are the people who
know a fair bit about that county, and in most cases this will be the
local FHS or GS. It is a pity the PRO did not find a way of involving
those Societies in indexing the 1901 census, but I am sure they will
learn from this mistake when it comes to the other 19th century ones. So
it seems to me that any county Society is likely to have a stark choice
- either collaborate with a commercial vendor in indexing the 1891 and
other censuses, or work with the PRO (who will pay for your time based
on the 1901 model). Ultimately I think we have to decide whether the
earnings from indexing work we do should go towards the National
Archives or to any commercial vendor. Something of a 'no-brainer' to me,
but you may decide otherwise.

P.S. For those interested in the Littleborough area, the 1901 census for
it was edited by yours truly (a former resident of Halifax Road,
Rochdale), so it should be better than the prisoners' original, but I
cannot guarantee complete accuracy. Likewise Rochdale was checked by one
of the most experienced family historians I know and should be good. We
never found a 3 year old Grace Stansfield though. 'Our Gracie' was not
at home it seems.

So, I am all in favour of S&N and any other commercial vendors seeking
to publish facsimiles on CD-ROM, but as a pensioner myself, I shall be
saving my pennies until the PRO version comes out.

P.P.S. Anyone who wishes to republish this message (or rather the parts
I have written) in any other forum is free to do so.

P.P.P.S. I also wish to pick up on the point Rod Neep made that the
images are in the 'public domain'. As far as I know that term has no
legal meaning. It is my understanding that the images remain Crown
Copyright but that the PRO has waived the requirement for payment of
royalties on Crown Copyright documents that are over 100 years old and
which were not available to the puplic at the time of creation. The full
statement on this is on the PRO website somewhere. Sorry to be pedantic,
but I was always told that accuracy in small details was a good trait
for a genealogist to have.
--
Barney Tyrwhitt-Drake

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