1911Census.org.uk

Searching for your ancestors on the 1911 census site

The 1911 census for England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands is available at findmypast now.

It costs around £1 to view a transcript and £3 to view the schedules (for more details, see the Accessing the 1911 census page) so whatever your view on the charge for the service, it makes sense to make the most of the initial free search to try and ensure that when you do pay to view an image, it is the right family.

On top of this, you can find out the names of the household and ages using just the free search and in many cases that is the only information you want, particularly for "side branches" of your family tree.

The following is an example of a search to find out the details of a gt-gt-uncle and his family. (Names are not real but are based on a real search). From the 1901 census, we know his name was Thomas Budge, aged 31 in 1901, he was living in Kensington with his wife Annie and two daughters.

To start, search for him using the person search (in all the following examples, all the search fields not shown should be empty, click on the Clear Search Form to empty all the fields) ...

Narrow the search using his age from the 1901 census so try ...

This looks a very good match so next need to track down his family with an advanced search of ...

Ethel and May were there in the 1901 census but not Arthur Charles, maybe their son who was elsewhere when the 1901 census was taken. So the next step is to check relationships with a search for ...

Result as expected, Annie was Thomas' wife. Try again for daughters ...

Again as expected but nice to get confirmation. Try next for sons ...

So Arthur Budge is not in the schedule as Son (unless of course there's been a mistranscription). One possibility is that he is Thomas' nephew ...

So Arthur is recorded as Nephew so must have been staying with his aunt and uncle on the night of the census.

We now know names, ages and relationships (when checking for relationships, allow for spelling errors so if you can't find a "niece", try for "neice" and so on).

The next question is, was anyone else in the house on census night. For a time you could enter a fullstop in the surname field and search for any name but that is no longer available. However wildcard searching is available and all names (you can use first names or last name) should contain a vowel so a search for '*A*', then '*E*', then '*I*', then '*O*', then '*U*' and finally '*Y*' should cover all possibilities

So we search for ...

No new names

Now try ...

In addition to the names we already know about, there is a 60 year old, Robert Barter. Once again try to find out the relationship ...

So try ...

So Robert Barter must be Annie Budge's father. This is new information, Annie's maiden name, so a quick switch to the FreeBMD site and search for a marriage between BUDGE, THOMAS and BARTER, ANNIE between 1886 and 1900, and up comes the marriage in Dec 1888 in Pancras of a THOMAS BUDGE to a ANNIE JANE BARTER.

A word of caution - this method is straightforward if there is only one Thomas Budge in Hendon. However if there are more, then all the names for several families will be displayed. There is no reason why the name that you put in the "Other Members of Household" fields has to be the head of the household, Thomas in this example. You could instead try Ethel Budge and if there is only one Ethel Budge in Hendon then you will get your family. You may have to try several names but if it is a very common name you still might not succeed.

We always welcome any comments, suggestions or corrections - you can contact us at the feedback email address on the left or (publicly) using the message board