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1921 Census

By Andy J |
Genealogy Chat

Is anyone else as underwhelmed by the 1921 Census as I am? After all the hype from FMP, I was hoping for much more, especially the information concerning whether both of a child's parents were still alive, but also the employment details. I duly logged on at midnight and spent £28.50 to see my key priority lookups. The Address search seemed woefully poor. Of my ten searches, 3 perfectly valid street names couldn't be found. Fortunately I had enough other details to get to the person I was looking for via another route. It would have been helpful if there had been a box for 'other people at same property' when initiating a search, like there is for the other censuses and the 1939 Register. I also found it annoying that having entered the search details, the system would come up with something like '30 people found matching the search terms', yet on proceeding to look at them, perhaps only one or two would be listed. Fortunately in each case I managed to find the person I was looking for, but what if the other near matches had been brand new links I wasn't previously aware of? My last niggle is that if you opt to just look at the image of the page (£3.50) there is no information about the house number or street/locality, meaning that you also need to pay for access to the transcribed data (£2.50) if you don't already know the address. The transcription only shows the full details for the person you searched for, and you need to pay again to see the full employment details etc for other occupants of the same property. At least with the image you get all the details for all the occupants, even if you have no idea where they are living!

I hope the experience of others was more positive.

As I live within easy reach of TNA, I think I might save my lower priority lookups until I can make a visit in person and do my searches for free. 

Thanks for the heads up Andy, I had no intentions of going anywhere near it until it has unrestricted access, didn't the 1911 or 39 start life in a similar manner and look at it now.

Very wise, Bert! I'm sure that the contract with TNA will have said that FMP must release the scans (if not the actual transcriptions) to other companies such as Ancestry after a certain amount of time has elapsed, after which access to the 1921C will probably just form part of the normal subscriptions.

To be fair to FMP, I was slightly wrong about the image version of a lookup not having the address, it's just that you need to go to the next page of the census form to find it, which isn't obvious initially as it looks like you have to pay again for the second page. In fact you get both pages for the initial £3.50 fee, but it's pricey if you have lots of lookups. I think for many of us, 1921 is so recent that we are able to use lots of other sources (living relatives, directories, electoral rolls etc) to confirm much of the detail to be found in the census. For me it was particularly the employment details being included for the first time which I found fascinating. Just as with the 1911 census where the occupant was also left to fill in their own household details, the results can be variable if they don't fully understand the instructions.

Thanks Andy 

I did look at the 1921 yesterday and must say I was surprised at the payment!

However I looked around and didn't spend anything, really just to confirm some people were still alive!!!

Think I'll be like Bert and wait, it would have been nice to see images but I think the cost is a bit steep for now.

Good luck if you get to TNA

Cheers Erika

 

I believe it will be three years before FMP release this census to, probably Ancestry, a long time away, meantime if anybody is able to visit Manchester Library, they do have free access to it, and I don't know if this is true but I've heard that there are well more than 100 computers to use to access it.

I did put in some names I knew and hovered my mouse over the icons at the side where it highlighted some names of others living in the household, it confirmed what I wanted to know and didn't go further and pay for the image.  But I also tried a couple of addresses that I thought they might have occupied at that time and when I managed to hit the correct one it did bring up an accurate list of all the family living there.

I have been sent a copy of an image by somebody who has paid for it and they did confirm that there were some interesting points, such as what the occupations were and where they worked.  Also age appears to be given in years and months, which should help a little with identification.

Just my two penneth worth.

I too spent a fair few bob trying to crack down some elusive relatives. I decided to pay for the image rather than the transcript due to people saying there were too many errors. At least with the image you can make your own mind up. As with Andy, you get a lot of search results, but then when you look, there are a lot less on the returns page.

I was also peeved that one of the records that I bought had no address on the relevant page, which was very annoying as that was what I was looking for. I would have to buy the records from either side (assuming they are infilled) to cross reference, which is frustrating.

I also found it frustrating that there was no column for years married, as I found that very useful in the 1911 return.

I found  a lot of the writing was scribbled, and looked like they were rushed, and some employment records are a bit hard to read.

One thing I did like was the birth age in years and months. 

I believe that you can book a 1 hour slot in Manchester central library, or 2 hours if you sit elsewhere in the library and access it - the cafe was recommended.

As suspected, it also caused more grief with people having totally different ages and birth records from previous records, so back to head scratching. he elusive Clifford Smith's non wife - 1911 census born in Poplar London, the 1921 census, Smethwick in Birmingham :-(

Just adding to your comments John, I thought you were allowed the next image with the address on?

Also this is what Susan Atkins (our Chair) says following her visit, this might give you some idea of what computers are available.

On my way home from Manchester Central Library with a USB stick full of 1921 Census. All a researcher needs to do is get a Library Card by providing Name & Address ID and then login to one of the Library Computers. If it is one of those which is part of Manchester & Lancashire FHS help desk then the limit is two hours but there is no limit on the 'Public Computers' as far as time is concerned. Will definitely be back there again. There is no charge as long as you are a UK resident.

 

Hi Mary, there is an extra materials tab at the bottom of the image which allows you to view and download the address page, cover and 2 maps. This is included in the £3.50 search. It is the next census page that you cannot view.

Thanks for the tip on visiting. I have that on my agenda in the not too distant future as I have spent enough already!

 

Extra comment by Sue about travelling

return fare on specified trains from Lime Street was £6.15 through Trainline including their fee so less than the cost of two original entries in 1921. That was very cheap.

And a comment in reply

if you buy your train ticket through the Northern Rail App on your phone, there's no handling/booking fee 

I've just got back from a day at the National Archives. I did about 40 lookups so saved myself about £200 since I looked at both the transcription and the image in each case. I have to re-iterate my earlier complaint about the address lookup facility on FMP being particularly poor. And the quality of the transcriptions is also not great. I think I sent off about a dozen corrections for mistakes which were really obvious (several versions of the family name in the same household who were obviously related, for instance). I wonder how much of the transcribing was done using AI which I assume is supposed to be checked for quality by a human (but the AI is probably smarter than the human anyway).

Only one complete failure to find someone I am pretty sure was alive in 1921.  I suspect that if I had had more collateral information (say, where they were likely to be living in 1921) I might have tracked them down despite the dodgy transcription and address facility.

One point to note for anyone else intending to go to TNA, you can't save the images onto a memory stick and have to email them to yourself. However if you take your own iphone, tablet or laptop, you can log on to their wifi network to do the searching and then you can save the images on your own device.

Thank you for the update Andy, well worth thinking about, also if a trip to Manchester is convenient then a memory stick could be useful.

Didn't you see the Findmypast and 1921 census talk the other evening?  I think it was very useful especially in advising that the transcriptions were actually done by people.  If you missed it, the recording is in the members area of the website under the heading of Documents> Recordings.

FMP are doing half price on 1921 Census lookups this weekend 23/24 April 2022. Update: The offer begins Friday 22 April at 10:00 BST, and ends Monday 25 April at 23:59 BST.