1921 Census release today

Chestnut

Calistemon

Chestnut the boy my GGP brought up is listed on the census as "Adopted Son" although I don't think it was an official adoption.

But I suppose they were replacing his parents permanently whereas my two boys were only being looked after. One was moved on later to Barnados so it wasn't permanent.

Yes, I think they took him on as toddler and he was still on a census with them when he was 23.

I searched for my grandparents on the 1939 one . I found their house which I went to many times in my childhood , my mother was brought up there with 3 siblings . My aunt , aged 81 , still lives across the road . My GF died in 1973 and my GM in 1989.

growstuff

Strangely, my paternal grandparents aren't on it. I know they were married in 1919 and I know where they lived, so it's surprising. They must have been on holiday or abroad for some other reason.

Hi Growstuff,
I tried for my maternal grandparents through both of them without any luck I then tried my aunt who had a very unusual first name and up she popped but not in the district /parish I would have expected. It was the voting consistency with a place name she turned up in not the parish or town.
I'm going to try some more later my father had not been born but his elder sister with an unusual name for the area had so I might be in luck.
Surely Ancestry will be quick to follow when they realise they are losing custom.
I would agree how easy it is these days instead of trolling through micro fische at the Centers and also people who copy any old thing then Ancestry changes yours. I have found this quite a lot and I'm thankful I always printed off a copy of the census.

My GGM took in three nephews and a niece whose parents died suddenly. Their GPs would only take the eldest girl whom they treated no better than a servant. My GGM already had 10 children of her own, and a few years later she added two more little boys (unrelated) to her family when their mother died and their drunken father was always beating them. It seemed to happen a lot back then.
I guess when you have a large family a few more don't make much difference. Her 'adopted' children all appeared as 'son' or 'daughter' on the Census so I guess that's how she thought of them and what she told the enumerator. My GF always thought of them as his brothers and sister. She was a remarkable woman, bringing up 16 children in a small cottage! She was also the local midwife (no qualifications except her own experiences), and did washing, cleaning and baking to boost the coffers.

I shall be exploring the 1921 Census this evening.

I have only looked up my maternal grandparents so far, hopefully time this afternoon to look at some more. I was surprised that fewer questions were asked than in 1911. Perhaps people didn’t like being asked how many years they had been married at the same time as giving children’s ages!
I was surprised to find my grandfather was a smallholder as not long after the census and for the rest of his working life he was a sub postmaster. He was shot through the head in WW1 and afterwards had a volatile temper. An early example of today’s gardening therapy perhaps.

Interesting of course, but so far I haven't found anything I didn't know already, but will keep looking just in case.

I really think it's far too long to wait! Specially with information being so readily available to all now, I think 50 years is the furthes reasonable wait! Well never see our own contribution

People are assured when filling in the census forms that they will remain secret for a hundred years. There was a lot of pressure to release the 1921 census earlier. I think it was Theresa May who refused.

Does anyone know how to report errors/glitches? I know there are transcription errors and I have yet to find my father in the index. My mother is with her parents, as expected but the village doesn't come up in the index. It is shown by the final part of the next village, which is no help at all. Anyone looking for North Cave in East Yorkshire will find it just says 'thorpe'. The parish is North Cave, Drewton & Everthorpe.

Chestnut yes we go on Ancestry about once a year to check out what's new but rarely find anything we want. I'm sure there are new things for other people, just not the areas/people we have an interest in.

For people missing men in the census one thing to consider is that hospital/army/navy/prison records may be in a different area. We found someone we had been missing for a couple of years in a lunatic asylum! His name was spelled incorrectly each time so we had missed him.

Mummer

I really think it's far too long to wait! Specially with information being so readily available to all now, I think 50 years is the furthes reasonable wait! Well never see our own contribution

That will never happen. It is set down as 100 years in the Census Act 1920 and everyone who completed a census since then has been assured the information is confidential for 100 years. They will never break that promise.

The 1920 Census Act prohibited the unlawful disclosure of any information given in the census, determining that the information collected would only be used to produce statistics, and no information would be released which allowed the identification of any individual or household. The census information is not available to be viewed by the public for 100 years.

I looked up my father who was born in 1920, I knew he was fostered but it was sad to see a 1 year old listed as “boarder”.?
There were two older girls listed as adopted but their surnames were given so I wonder if this was an unofficial adoption.
I agree the transcription is poor. My father’s name was Gwilym and this is clear but transcribed and in the index as Gwinlyn.

rubysong

Does anyone know how to report errors/glitches? I know there are transcription errors and I have yet to find my father in the index. My mother is with her parents, as expected but the village doesn't come up in the index. It is shown by the final part of the next village, which is no help at all. Anyone looking for North Cave in East Yorkshire will find it just says 'thorpe'. The parish is North Cave, Drewton & Everthorpe.

When viewing the original record there is a button at the top for 'report image error' but nothing else at the moment. I haven't seen a transcription so don't know if there is a button there for 'transcription error'. You may have to take notes on errors and submit them later when the census becomes available through subscription. It's early days.

I knew where my parents were in 1921, at least more or less where my mother was and definitely my father.
So I haven't done any delving yet - do you still have to pay per record if you have a FindMyPast subscription?
And how come this census is not free as others were?

There is a button for reporting a transcription error.

So far I have downloaded three 1921 census records but two were for the wrong people, so easy to do when many people share the same name and basic facts. You don't need to pay a subscription with Find My Past to use it, you just have to register your details and pay for each download, £2.50 for a transcript and £3.50 to view the original document, but make sure you are downloading the right person and then save it.

Unfortunately as you have found it’s sometimes impossible to know if you have the right person until you’ve paid!

That is one of the downsides, along with printing pages and pages for the file and then shredding them when new information comes along!

You have to be very careful when paying per household. I have not paid for my great aunt as I'm not sure it's her. I will wait until she's available on subscription. For all my direct ancestors I know the families so well I have no problem identifying them for certain.

I expected it to be on Ancestry but it isn't. Must read through all the answers here to see if anyone has found it.

It's on FindMyPast, TheoddBird

Annoying as I had renewed my Ancestry subscription recently. I'm not even sure if you can access it free with a subscription.

No you can't Calistemon. If you have a subscription to FMP you just get 10% off the ppv charge so not worth it unless you have a huge number of people to look up. Unlike Ancestry where if you had a sub you could access everything for free. I've temporarily cancelled my FMP and Ancestry subs as I don't need them at present and they don't half add up!

If your relations are living in a different country to where they were born try saying their name in accent, my Scots Hutton turned to Hatton in Cumbria. Also names pronounced differently where they lived. I have Atkinsons down as Atchins which let me find an Ackla which was really Ackerlay and Bickit which was Bethwaite.

That's rather naughty!

Surely a census should be open fr public view after 10 years.
That's how I started off, no subscriptions but researching free censuses.

I agree Yammy.

Calistemon, given the questions asked on the last census we completed, would you really want all and sundry to have access to it in 10 years? I wouldn't and I don't think I have anything to hide, but some people probably wouldn't have been truthful, for instance about their sexuality, if they knew the information would be seen by others so soon. However there really wasn't anything in the 1921 census that you couldn't discover elsewhere other than occupation and number of rooms inhabited, unlike earlier censuses which demanded to know how long you had been married and how many children had been born to the marriage, still alive or by then dead, which must have been distressing.

I do agree that ppv is unfair though as it puts research beyond the pockets of so many. Unfortunately the Scots site ScotlandsPeople is the same, though the Scottish 1921 census hasn't been released yet.

I have found that errors and glitches can be reported by emailing the support department at FMP. I am making a list.