Tips for finding our ancestors in the 1911 census

As many of you will know the 1911 census for Scotland is not available on Findmypast or Ancestry. The Orkney 1911 census has been transcribed and is available from the Orkney FHS.

This means that we have to use the census on ScotlandsPeople which is a pay-per-view website. If we are researching a common name in a densely populated area we may have to look at many entries before we find the right one. 

How can we save those credits?

I will be sharing some tips at our conference on 30 January 2021 but here is one for you today.

Use Street Indexes

Before the census was available to public access, street indexes were prepared for large towns and cities. These can be helpful as they tell you which streets are in each registration district and even which census enumeration book. 

For example, earlier today I was searching for someone who I knew had been living at 272 Buchanan Street Glasgow in 1909. I wanted to work out from the ScotlandsPeople index (without paying anything) if any of the possible results could relate to 272 Buchanan Street.

First I went to the census street index for Glasgow and I was told that 272 Buchanan Street was in registration district number 644/8 and the relevant enumeration book was number 29.

Sadly you can’t use these reference numbers to search on ScotlandsPeople so I needed to work out what the name of registration district number 644/8 was in 1911. For rural areas, this isn’t such a problem but there are loads of districts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee. It can all get a bit confusing. 

I now headed to the ‘Registration District guide - Glasgow’ which told me that in 1911 (very important to look at the date column) 644/8 was St. Rollox registration district.

I could now return to ScotlandsPeople and narrow down my search to St. Rollox. You can’t narrow it down to the enumeration book but we are looking for entries from 644/8 29. 

On ScotlandsPeople you will also see a page number as part of the reference number, for example we may see, ‘644/8 29/ 26’ This is registration district (RD) 644/8, enumeration book 29, page 26.

If I had originally thought that the entry with the reference 644/8 29/ 26 was 272 Buchanan Street, Glasgow, I would now know that it wasn’t and therefore I could save my credits for another search.

There are 1911 Census Street Indexes for the following places in Scotland:

Aberdeen

Ayr

Bonhill

Bothkennar, Grangemouth and Polmont

Bothwell, Holytown and Bellshill

Cambusnethan

Dalziel

Dumfries

Dunbarton

Dundee

Dunfermline

East and West Calder

Edinburgh

Falkirk

Glasgow

Greenock, Gourock and Port Glasgow

Hamilton

Hawick

Inverness

Kilmarnock

Kirkcaldy and Dysart

Lewis and Harris

Montrose

New Kilpatrick

New Monkland

Old Kilpatrick

Old Monkland - Western District, Coatbridge and Old Monkland - Eastern District

Paisley, Johnstone and Elderslie

Perth

Skye

St Ninians

Stirling

The Street Indexes are free from the National Records of Scotland here: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/census-records/1911-census#Street%20indexes

The ‘Parishes and Registration Districts of Scotland by name’ guide (1.4 MB pdf) lists all parishes and districts in alphabetical order with the dates during which each was operative. There are also pages with further breakdowns of the cities of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow. See: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/statutory-registers/registration-districts

I hope this helps you understand the referencing system a bit more and will hopefully save you some of those credits while you hunt for your ancestors. Hope you can join us at the next conference for more Scottish genealogy tips!

Why we moved to Scottish Indexes (and why we're happy that we did!)

We’re settling in to our new home at Scottish Indexes (www.scottishindexes.co.uk). It’s been amazing to hear all of your comments and compliments on the new site – we’re so excited about our new venture and it’s lovely to hear that you are too!

Having got our breath back a bit, we thought now would be a nice time to discuss why we made the change, and what the new site offers. Questions and comments are always welcome – contact us here or join us on Facebook or Twitter to have a natter.

Even while up to his ears in dusty documents, Graham has always recognised the possibilities of modern technologies to help make your ancestral research easier. Cast your mind back to those far off days when the internet moved at the pace of a decrepit sloth, access was billed by the minute and plugging in the internet immediately meant you’d miss the phone call you’d been waiting for all day. Our founder Graham Maxwell, undeterred, created his own website http://web.archive.org/web/20000816164141/http://website.lineone.net/~family.history/ (catchy URL, we know!)

This first website Graham had is listed in the guide, “Cyndi's List: A Comprehensive List of 70,000 Genealogy Sites on the internet, Volume 2” (2001 edition). 

Back then, Graham focused on researching the ancestors of individual clients to create family trees. This involved regular trips to Edinburgh to painstakingly search documents such as the census - there were few indexes in those days. It wasn’t long before Graham moved his site to http://maxwells.freeserve.co.uk/. There’s still a version online – looking back it is very basic and quite embarrassing but at the time we were quite proud of it!

Genealogist Emma joined the business in 2001 and together the husband and wife team created www.maxwellancestry.com in 2006. Intended to provide a clearer service to their clients, the website showcased not only research services but also the printed indexes which the company had already made available, mostly consisting of many South of Scotland census records from 1841, 1851 and 1861. As technology moved on, companies like Ancestry, Scotland'sPeople and FreeCEN started offering immediate online access to the census. Graham and Emma updated their website, adding a searchable census database with free access without subscription. Since then our online database of indexes has grown enormously, with a variety of records from around Scotland.

Today many people want to trace their family tree for themselves rather than enlisting a professional to do it for them. We totally understand the thrill of engaging in your own ancestral research, so while we still offer a full research package we’re also here to offer our expert advice and research assistance to those who simply need a little help along the way. As genealogists, Graham and Emma know that basic sources such as the census and birth, marriage and death entries can only take you so far. Records like prison registers, court registers and health records can tell you much more about the real people in your family tree.

This is why Graham and Emma are launching a new website www.scottishindexes.com. Since the early days we’ve often found it easier to index records than to return to the physical copies again and again. By making such records more widely available we hope to make genealogical research simpler for amateurs and professionals alike. We're keen to make ancestral research as affordable as possible so that everyone has the opportunity to discover more about their past. On the website, you can search intuitively across a broad range of records, deepen your understanding of Scottish genealogy resources in the learning zone and buy books from the bookshop. We’re always standing by though, so you can get help when you need it from expert Scottish genealogists.