Herbert Asquith was the prime minister, the Liberal Party was in power and most people in Britain did not live beyond the age of 54. The year was 1911 and, on the first Sunday in April, the head of every household in the country sat down to fill in their census form. Now, the results of the survey have been made available to the public in the form of a huge online database, allowing millions of people to delve into their family backgrounds and find out where their ancestors lived and what they did for a living.
The census forms, which contain handwritten personal details of the 36 million people living in England and Wales that year, have been converted into digital form and uploaded on to the internet by the National Archives. Members of the public can view the forms for about "libra" 1 each, allowing them to find out what jobs their forefathers did and even see what their handwriting looked like. Those who live in houses dating back to 1911 or earlier can even type in their own address and discover who lived there 100 years ago. Researchers have already located the pages filled out by the country‘s then prime minister, Herbert Asquith, and that of the author Virginia Woolf. The forms submitted by the Royal Family – including King George V – are also available to view, as are those filled out by the ancestors of present day celebrities including David Beckham and Amy Winehouse. So far, 80 per cent of the available records from England have been uploaded, with the remainder set to go online in the next few months. The documents, which include high-quality colour images of the forms as well as written transcripts, are available at www.1911census.co.uk.
The records show the name, age, place of birth, marital status and occupation of every resident in every home, as well as their relationship to the head of the household. The project,which was not due to be completed until 2012 but has been pushed forward because of public demand, was carried out by the National Archives in cooperation with the ancestry website findmypast.com.
The Independent
O autorovi| Stránku připravila Marta Pelechová
