How to cite the 1911 England/Wales census

Geoff Rasmussen

15 Jan 2009

It has now been two days since the online release of the 1911 England and Wales census. From your comments, it sounds like many of you have found success, while others have faced challenges with their search engine and pricing. With time these things will surely be enhanced.

We have heard your requests for us to create a specific SourceWriter template for this new census and we are now ready to give it to you. It has been really fun 😉 trying to interpret and properly identify the citation information that accompanies each downloaded image and make it easy for you to enter it into Legacy. This is part of the file name of the image when downloaded, and it is all supposed to mean something:

RG14PN28112 RG78PN1606 RD511 SD5 ED3 SN40

In creating the new template, it was not as easy as simply modifying an existing SourceWriter template to create this new one. The records have new identifiers and appear to be catalogued differently than previous censuses. So we have done the hard work so it will be a piece of cake for you. We have now come up with a standard for citing this census which, for an online image will provide the following formatted citations:

Footnote/Endnote Citation:
     1911 census of England, Yorkshire, Tingle Bridge Hemingfield near Barnsley, Tom Hague household; digital images, Findmypast.com, 1911census.co.uk (http://www.1911census.co.uk); citing RG 78 PN 1606, RG 14 PN 28112, registration district (RD) 511, sub district (SD) 5, enumeration district (ED) 3, schedule number (SN) 40.

Subsequent Citation:
     1911 census of England, Yorkshire, Single Bridge Flemingfield near Barnsley, Tom Hague household.

Bibliography:
England. Yorkshire. 1911 census of England. Digital images. Findmypast.com.
     1911census.co.uk. http://www.1911census.co.uk : 2009.

The good thing about all of this is that you do not have to know what pieces go where for the citations. Legacy's award-winning (I just couldn't resist advertising that award…) SourceWriter does it all for you. You just fill in the blanks! We have created 20 new templates which will cover each type of media (online images, online database, microfilm, etc.) for England, Wales, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man.

How to get the update
Our programmers are actually in the middle of a big project (for the future) and so we cannot yet release an "official" free update. We did not want to wait for the next free update to give you this new template. So, if you want this new template, you will need to download a special file which will replace the existing Legacy10.dbm file which resides in your Legacy folder. Here's how to do it:

Make sure Legacy is closed.
Click here to download the Legacy10.zip file. I recommend saving this "zipped" file to your desktop so you remember where you saved it. (You can delete the .zip file after step 4.)
Because this is a "zipped" file, it needs to be extracted. This is super easy in Windows XP or Vista. Simply double-click on the file and follow the prompts. The resulting Legacy10.dbm file needs to be extracted to replace your existing Legacy10.dbm file which currently resides in your c:\Legacy folder.
Open Legacy and the new templates are ready to use.

Let us know (by commenting below) about your experiences with using the new 1911 census.

Comments (9)

Can you tell me the significance of the two RG and Piece No. items? Previous censuses only had one. What is the second one for?

A couple points from Graham’s message:
Transcription errors – every transcribed dataset will have errors and some sections will be worse than others for a variety of reasons, but one thing about Findmypast is that unlike some other major players in genealogy at least they have the facility for users to submit “transcription errors” they have identified by checking the imaged; the company will then verify and correct if appropriate. If anyone does believe they have identified an error, can I suggest they take the trouble to submit a change request so as to help others.
Wild card search – at the top of the “what features are available” page, under the help and advice, it stated that initially some features were being disabled to prevent the system crashing as a result in an early surge in demand, like the 1901 census did.
Features like the “wild card” search are gradually being “unlocked” as the demand data becomes available.
Note – the sites latest update of 19 Jan 2009 states that: “We are now beginning to unlock the advanced search options, and you can now search using wildcards, or using the ‘name starting with’ feature.”
Jeff

When setting up the source, is not clear what the difference is between an “Online Image” and an “Online Database”.
Also, regarding the setup for an Online Image, I would leave the county blank, so I had only one source for the 1911 England Census. For those users who want to set up only one source for England, but still want the source line to state “1911 census of England, countyname”, you would need to add a county name box to the citation page.
I myself would not even use that, since it is redundant to the Location field, which already shows the county.

1911 UK Census
To be honest I am appalled at the quality of the transcription. I have found several families where every entry is incorrectly transcribed. I have yet to find a close relative and his family despite knowing where they lived at the time (and yes this area has been transcribed). The wildcard search does not work at all – try entering a search on a surname you’ve already found!
That said this, for me, is a critical census and with more effort than should be required does deliver some essential results albeit at a high cost.
Graham

Whilst I agree that the cost is very high especially for a pensioner, I have found that it is very easy to check each family individually looking in particular for unusual christian names or second names within that family checking that the place is the same as the 1901 census was anyone missing check the BMD’s for a change using this I have reduced the probability of being correct and this system has given me 11 out of 12 correct hits.
The ease of using the site is second to none and briding the gap between family memories and fact has made at least one 70 year old very happy I just have to wait until Feb pension and I will have my next list ready.

Thanks everybody – how many other programs come up with a solution in just a few days ? – you really do take customer care to the limit ! Well done

Earl – if you look in the bibliography entry, these are the items in the master source. The specific household information is indeed part of the source detail.

While the 1911 UK census is not of interest to me, it looks like this source has been set up so that every download is a new Source. I do not think that is a reasonable way to use Sources as I, for one, would end up with thousands of sources. The source should be either the “1911 UK census” or the “1911 UK census for Yorkshire” and the specific household and sheet should be part of the detail. That way one can use the Master List feature to identify all individuals in this census or in this census in Yorkshire. If you have only one person to source, your suggestion works OK but those of us with 100s or 1000s of individuals we are following could not use such a specific source. (Would you use each page of a book as a source or the whole book as the source and each page as the Detail?)
Earl

Was reluctant to pay the amount as I thought the charge for a view was high. But I bit the bullet or had a senior moment and joined and am happy to say that I found 2 other relatives I did not know I had.
It was worth the money but you have to choose who you use to search for. I found that looking for the woman (wife) gave me the best return as this eliminated a lot of the males with similar names.
By the way found it worked very well. I am in New Zealand. You know that country that nobody ever goes to, but has plenty of sheep.

R
Roy

16 years ago

Can you tell me the significance of the two RG and Piece No. items? Previous censuses only had one. What is the second one for?
JH
Jeff Hannan

16 years ago

A couple points from Graham’s message:
Transcription errors – every transcribed dataset will have errors and some sections will be worse than others for a variety of reasons, but one thing about Findmypast is that unlike some other major players in genealogy at least they have the facility for users to submit “transcription errors” they have identified by checking the imaged; the company will then verify and correct if appropriate. If anyone does believe they have identified an error, can I suggest they take the trouble to submit a change request so as to help others.
Wild card search – at the top of the “what features are available” page, under the help and advice, it stated that initially some features were being disabled to prevent the system crashing as a result in an early surge in demand, like the 1901 census did.
Features like the “wild card” search are gradually being “unlocked” as the demand data becomes available.
Note – the sites latest update of 19 Jan 2009 states that: “We are now beginning to unlock the advanced search options, and you can now search using wildcards, or using the ‘name starting with’ feature.”
Jeff
GL
Glenn Lane

16 years ago

When setting up the source, is not clear what the difference is between an “Online Image” and an “Online Database”.
Also, regarding the setup for an Online Image, I would leave the county blank, so I had only one source for the 1911 England Census. For those users who want to set up only one source for England, but still want the source line to state “1911 census of England, countyname”, you would need to add a county name box to the citation page.
I myself would not even use that, since it is redundant to the Location field, which already shows the county.
GL
Graham Love

16 years ago

1911 UK Census
To be honest I am appalled at the quality of the transcription. I have found several families where every entry is incorrectly transcribed. I have yet to find a close relative and his family despite knowing where they lived at the time (and yes this area has been transcribed). The wildcard search does not work at all – try entering a search on a surname you’ve already found!
That said this, for me, is a critical census and with more effort than should be required does deliver some essential results albeit at a high cost.
Graham
IM
Ivy Murphy

16 years ago

Whilst I agree that the cost is very high especially for a pensioner, I have found that it is very easy to check each family individually looking in particular for unusual christian names or second names within that family checking that the place is the same as the 1901 census was anyone missing check the BMD’s for a change using this I have reduced the probability of being correct and this system has given me 11 out of 12 correct hits.
The ease of using the site is second to none and briding the gap between family memories and fact has made at least one 70 year old very happy I just have to wait until Feb pension and I will have my next list ready.
BD
Bill Davison

16 years ago

Thanks everybody – how many other programs come up with a solution in just a few days ? – you really do take customer care to the limit ! Well done
GR
Geoff Rasmussen

16 years ago

Earl – if you look in the bibliography entry, these are the items in the master source. The specific household information is indeed part of the source detail.
ES
Earl Schultz

16 years ago

While the 1911 UK census is not of interest to me, it looks like this source has been set up so that every download is a new Source. I do not think that is a reasonable way to use Sources as I, for one, would end up with thousands of sources. The source should be either the “1911 UK census” or the “1911 UK census for Yorkshire” and the specific household and sheet should be part of the detail. That way one can use the Master List feature to identify all individuals in this census or in this census in Yorkshire. If you have only one person to source, your suggestion works OK but those of us with 100s or 1000s of individuals we are following could not use such a specific source. (Would you use each page of a book as a source or the whole book as the source and each page as the Detail?)
Earl
CF
Colin Forster

16 years ago

Was reluctant to pay the amount as I thought the charge for a view was high. But I bit the bullet or had a senior moment and joined and am happy to say that I found 2 other relatives I did not know I had.
It was worth the money but you have to choose who you use to search for. I found that looking for the woman (wife) gave me the best return as this eliminated a lot of the males with similar names.
By the way found it worked very well. I am in New Zealand. You know that country that nobody ever goes to, but has plenty of sheep.