Comments on: Family Historians to be Ambassadors for 2011 Census

By: Ken Divall

Ken Divall — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:04:45 +0000

Nothing to do with Genealogy or Family History, but those who have been visitors/members to the SoG in the last 12 years will be saddened to hear that former employee Sheila Marshalls husband David died `gently in his sleep` in a Cornish Hospice on Monday morning he was 61 and had been ill for some time, I`m sure you will join me in offering our deepest sympathy to Sheila Marshall and her family

By: Sue Gibbons

Sue Gibbons — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:55:32 +0000

I have filled in our 2011 census on-line and included second forenames where there was space. Presumably since the data is already in digital form they will not remove those additional names? They are hoping that 25% will do it on-line. The more people who do, the less likely they are to scrap the next one because of the cost.

One item on the plus side for this census is the question about relationship to previous person. In these days of partnerships rather than marriages and the prevalence of divorce, how often do you get households where one or more children are the woman’s and one or more the man’s from previous relationships and one or more are children from the current partnership?

By: Bryan

Bryan — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 06:35:20 +0000

The 2011 census will be of little value to genealogists in 100 years time.
The lack of middle names, birth town / county, number of children from this marriage and number from previous relationships, will result in people not being able to help trace their ancestors using the 2011 census records.
This is a huge step backwards, in the 19th century and early 20th century, with less technology, the census records were far better than this current poor attempt. The Office for National Statistics should be ashamed of themselves.

By: Alec

Alec — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:11:41 +0000

It strikes me as somewhat hypocritical that the 2011 Census website (http://2011.census.gov.uk/2011FamilyHistory) is trying to use family historians to promote this census when this census will be useless to future family historians. Without all forenames and place of birth it will be impossible to identify any individual with any form of common name. Also I am amazed at the number of family history organisations that have “jumped on the bandwagon” and “liked” the facebook page http://www.facebook.com/2011censusfamilyhistory.