1901 Census

[Jo Simpsons]

The 1901 census is online. It is free to search but does cost to view the pages. It can prove to be expensive, especially if you have picked the wrong person! Also has a time limit credit card payment only 48hrs and 6 months with a voucher. If you still have credit left it will be lost after your time limit. As this hobby can run expensive I use the 1901 decoder to find my person first. To down load the free programme
http://www.censusdecoder.com/
There is a good explanation on the site of how it works. You can group surnames up that appear on the same census page to work out if you have found the right family.
I keep a note of who I have found and then add up what the cost is going to be. When I have a few to see I pay to view and look them up in one go. Saving the census pages as I go.

Sounds like I am tight but I'm not ;)
I wasted so much money to start with because I didn't understand the way it worked or was costed.
Jo :)

[Londonwhay]

The 1901 census is online. It is free to search but does cost to view the pages. It can prove to be expensive, especially if you have picked the wrong person! Also has a time limit credit card payment only 48hrs and 6 months with a voucher. If you still have credit left it will be lost after your time limit. As this hobby can run expensive I use the 1901 decoder to find my person first. To down load the free programme
http://www.censusdecoder.com/
There is a good explanation on the site of how it works. You can group surnames up that appear on the same census page to work out if you have found the right family.
I keep a note of who I have found and then add up what the cost is going to be. When I have a few to see I pay to view and look them up in one go. Saving the census pages as I go.

Sounds like I am tight but I'm not ;)
I wasted so much money to start with because I didn't understand the way it worked or was costed.
Jo :)
WOW Jo, this is a great little program, I have just downloaded it and tried it out. As I have already wasted money on the 1901 census I can see that I will be using this quite a bit. Many thanks for the link. :D

Glenda

[Annie]

Double WOW Jo
your a star, this isn't just useful to beginners

Annie

[ziksby]

Very similar to a program I have used for the past 2 years called 1901 Census Extractor and Guesstimator from www.leedsindexers.co.uk (http://www.leedsindexers.co.uk)

[Jo Simpsons]

I've just been looking on the web site you said,ziksby, very interesting.
Jo

[Guy Etchells]

I have a problem with such programs, QuientiQ the 1901 providers for the National Archives have twice tried to upgrade the site to confuse such programs.
I therefore see the use of such programs as an attempt to bypass their security.

It may not seem much but if QuientiQ have to spend time and money upgrading their security and program coding they will spend less time and money concentrating on providing a good service and accurate transcriptions.

In the long run the losers will be the customers, family historians like you and I.
Cheers
Guy

[Jo Simpsons]

I'm no computer buff but I can't see how the decoder is bypassing any security? I may be ignorant on this.
You don't actually see any records, I feel it is a "tool" that helps you find the right people to be able to pay to see the census from the 1901 site. Is that not the same as the use of FreeBMD, FreeCEN and in the future FreeREG?
1901 census is renown for miss transcriptions as it had been transcribed overseas, people not familiar with names or areas of this country. I transcribe for freebmd and freecen and it is not easy so I am not knocking who has done it. I have wasted so much money on the site, to be able to find the right family and then see the census page is brilliant. £ 5.00 is soon gone and you can easily get mixed up on what is to offer when you first go on. It costs 75p to see a page, you need to be able to work out the cost to get your moneys worth. The amount of 50ps soon add up and if you loose connection and it logs you out. You have lost that money. I really don't feel it is anything other than an index to get you where the family is you want to see.
Jo:)

[Guy Etchells]

I understand what you are meaning but the facts still speak for themselves, when the 1901 was up and running after the first fiasco, there was no coding, and family groupings could be collated relatively easily.
The site was then changed and session developed codes were used for each return, apart from the time and money this change in security cost, it also showed that QuientiQ did not want people to use the site in that manner.
If they did not mind the use of such software they would not have tried to foil it.

I therefore feel we should respect those wishes.
Cheers
Guy

[Jo Simpsons]

Hi Guy,
understand your point of view. But :o I will use a programme that allows me to keep my money for positive hits. I'm sure they would get more income that way. People get fed up not getting results and losing money.
I do respect your views though, think you are a mind full on information.
Jo :)

[ziksby]

And there I was thinking these guys were doing me a favour :rolleyes: by providing free access to the hidden info. So why didn't Quinetic get their act together and provide it anyway? I would have thought an enhanced search facility would have resulted in extra revenue. I was far more confident using their "pay for view" facility when I could match page/person ID nos. and see members of a household grouped together (especially with my surname ... JONES).

What about Hugh Wallis's powerful batch number add-on to the LDS site?
Does that fall into the same category?
Respectfully yours

[ziksby]

Jo

Great minds think alike ..... I wrote the above offline in reply to Guy's first post and sent it without reading your reply. It seems we agree on this.

[Jo Simpsons]

Hi Ziksby,
I feel at the end of the day you need "Proof" for all your connections. If you can get there by whatever means and you are still paying to view the census page what is the problem? I transcribe for freeBMD and freeCEN and if I get a cheap/free microfiche reader (any offers :D ) I will for freeREG. I don't see it as being any different. All you are getting is a reference to find the people you want. Hugh Wallis batch numbers, 1881 census and other things you can find for free, AMAZING.
They need to be put on this link too come to think about it.
Jo :)

[Geoffers]

Hi Ziksby,
I feel at the end of the day you need "Proof" for all your connections. If you can get there by whatever means and you are still paying to view the census page what is the problem? Jo :)
I think the problem is that some people (quite a few actually) don't need proof. So I can understand that full transcriptions of the census would result in less income - however - I don't see the problem of identifying family groups.

How frustrating must it be if you're searching for a John and Elizabeth Smith and their son John.......or any other commonly occurring name, especially if this is somewhere in say, Birmingham, Manchester, or London. How do you identify which is the one you're after? Do you end up purchasing 5, 10, 15 or more images?

If you have some experience in researching family history, you may be able to work around it, but if you're new to the hobby, do you just think, what's the point and give up in frustration? And there's the annoying thing for me, because that new researcher may be just the person I or you or anyone else is trying to locate as a distant family member - and if they give up it makes our research more difficult too.

I have a one-name and a one-place study and find the inconsistency of the indexing to be a real problem - why or why when someone is born and living in the same place, do these two names get transcribed differently? How on earth could someone appear on the index as 367 years old? Obviously the indexer hit two keys at the same time, but was there no system of double-checking? And 367 is a mere striplling of youth compared with another researcher who found an ancestor who was supposedly born in 1157 and who still hadn't popped his clogs by 1901 (I'd love to know his secret of long life :) ).

For my Norfolk research, I now just purchase fiches of districnce in researching family history, you may be able to work around it, but if you're new to the hobby, do you just think, what's the point and give up in frustration? And there's the annoying thing for me, because that new researcher may be just the person I or you or anyone else is trying to locate as a distant family member - and if they give up it makes our research more difficult too.

I have a one-name and a one-place study and find the inconsistency of the indexing to be a real problem - why or why when someone is born and living in the same place, do these two names get transcribed differently? How on earth could someone appear on the index as 367 years old? Obviously the indexer hit two keys at the same time, but was there no system of double-checking? And 367 is a mere striplling of youth compared with another researcher who found an ancestor who was supposedly born in 1157 and who still hadn't popped his clogs by 1901 (I'd love to know his secret of long life :) ).

For my Norfolk research, I now just purchase fiches of districts from TNA and index them myself - at least if I get that wrong I've no one else to blame.

Geoffers
Charlbury, Oxfordshire

[Guy Etchells]

I totally agree Geoffers, I find indexes totally fustrating and much prefer buying fiche of the original returns and parish registers for that matter.
An additional benefit with purchasing fiche is that one can see ones ancestors in context with their neighbours, it does not even take much to work out what shops and pubs the would have used and build an image of the actual life they lived.
This is not possible simply by using indexes and individual images.

I should add that the cd census sets have all the advantages of fiche/film with the addition of covering a larger area and the chance to enhance the image if there is difficulty reading the writing.

The one advantage of an index is speed, but when compared with what is lost it does not seem a great advantage at all.
Cheers
Guy

[Zoe Archer]

What about Hugh Wallis's powerful batch number add-on to the LDS site?
Does that fall into the same category?
Respectfully yours

I think you are now comparing apples and oranges. Hugh Wallis's site provides a tool to help in searching 'free' information, where as the other programs provide a workaround to evade payment for information.

In a perfect world people would find their families and pay to view the pages, but as proven with the 1881 census (just ask Rod), many prefer to rely on indexes and other secondary sources to compile their family history. It's cheaper that way! Of course, whether the information is right or not, well that's a different matter. This doesn't seem to concern the 'name collectors'.

Obviously it was that much of a problem for QinetiQ to go to the trouble of changing their programming!

I'm all for free access, but to those jumping on the bandwagon and taking advantage of the increased popularity of this hobby/obsession to make money, it's big business!

Cheers,
Zoe Archer

[ziksby]

You know, it never occured to me that "the other programs provide a workaround to evade payment". I always looked on them as a type of advanced search facility. Certainly LeedsIndexers, who I understand to be a very reputable group of family historians, see their 1901 Guesstimator program as a "helping hand" for researchers.

Now I'm wondering .... would Hugh Wallis's site be available if the LDS site was not free?

[Rod Neep]

You know, it never occured to me that "the other programs provide a workaround to evade payment". I always looked on them as a type of advanced search facility. Certainly LeedsIndexers, who I understand to be a very reputable group of family historians, see their 1901 Guesstimator program as a "helping hand" for researchers.
not free?
They may see it as a "helping hand", but The National Archives didn't.

Yes... they are a sort of "advanced search facility". But the intention of the PRO (National Archives) 1901 census site is that you do a free search for a person, and then buy the image on line to see the whole page and the other family members in context.

Those "helping hand" programs bypass that, by giving the family members, without the need to purchase. So one can understand the position taken by the people (the PRO) who have paid an immense amount of money to put it all on line. On the other side of the coin, there are rather a lot of people out there who just want it all for free, with no consideration for the fact that it has a cost to the provider. :(

Regards
Rod

[John]

On the other side of the coin, there are rather a lot of people out there who just want it all for free, with no consideration for the fact that it has a cost to the provider. :(

Regards
Rod
And ultimately in many cases the provider is paid by the British taxpaper, whether they have a blind bit of interest in family history or not. So the folk who want to curcumvent paying for images want that information paid for by others.

John

[Londonwhay]

Just to add my 2p worth, I have used the 1901 site and it's cost me quite a bit for each name I have looked up on the 1901 census - a lot of money as most of my surnames are fairly common. If a census decoder helped me narrow down my search then I would use it. I would still pay to see the original image because I would want all the information I could get. But why should I pay more when I can pay less?

Another point, the british taxpayer may be paying for it, (and that includes me,) but isn't it an American firm that's creaming off the profits?

Glenda

[John]

Yeah, for a long time i've suspected that the British Government is an American firm.

John