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!

You can still access our website

If you have visited www.maxwellancestry.com in the last day you will have found it is unavailable. Don't worry though, we are simply changing some things in the background and it will be back to normal soon.

Our website is still accessible here: http://maxwellancestry.com.dnpserver.com/ancestry/default.htm and you can search the census for free.

If you need to contact me please use the email address maxwellancestry@btinternet.com

I'll let you all know when we're back up and running - thanks for your patience.

1841 Hoddom and 1851 Mochrum now online

We updated the census database last week; it now includes the 1841 census of Hoddom, Dumfriesshire and 1851 census Mochrum, Wigtownshire. As usual these new census transcriptions are also available in our bookshop.

As usual there are also various new household links, maps and notes that we hope will help you as you research families in Scotland.

Hawick has been mapped!!

Finally the mapping of Hawick has been finished. That means we have linked over 20,000 individual records to Google maps and of course the National Library of Scotland. It’s been a while since we have updated the database and we have been busy with other things too, which I will tell you about in separate blogs.

The last update not only added the Hawick map links but also some map links for Duns and varies other household links and notes that we have been collecting while we have been researching in the Borders.

So here is the link too our free census search away, I hope you all find it useful!!

Census database updated – Can you advertise it?

We have updated the database again; this time we have added 1841 & 1861 Fala & Soutra. We have also continued to add household links and notes to our database so hopefully some of our research will prove helpful to somebody.

Remember this is still a relatively new census database and many people still do not know it exists. It is different from many others; here are a few things we believe set us apart:

1. It is the only website, that we are aware of, that links the census with maps.

2. We have added notes from our own research, for example dates of death, marriage and birth and also notes about imprisonments.

3. We have transcribed the 1841, 1851 and 1861 census for Berwickshire, Scotland (as well as many other counties) and we offer this full transcription free on our website - we are the only website that offers this complete county without charge.

4. Our transcriptions are done by expert local genealogists; therefore ensuring a high standard of transcription.

5. Maiden names are commonly used throughout married life in Scotland (this can cause confusion in the census) therefore we have endeavoured to add married and maiden names to our database.

So if you agree that our free census search is helpful please help us advertise it. Can you post links? Can you email friends? Can you tell your local family history society or research group? If you can, more people will visit the site, then more people will click on adverts giving us revenue or buy some of our other products and services. This will enable us to keep updating the census and other records therefore helping everybody.

www.maxwellancestry.com

Thank you for your support,

Emma

Census update – Whithorn 1851 now online

Graham has just now uploaded the Wigtownshire parish of Whithorn to our free online census database. This brings the total number of entries in our 1851 database to 219683! I think we may have to have a celebration when we get to the quarter million mark.

Search the census now!

New Feature added to our fee census

We have just added an automatic maiden name search!

Try searching in the 1861 Census for "Elizabeth Grieve" located in the parish of "Roberton".

www.maxwellancestry.com/census

The only result will be Elizabeth G. Beatie, when you click to see the transcription you will see that Grieve was her maiden name. The maiden name has been automatically searched; this should help when researching female relatives especially if you don’t know whom they married! Not all married females have been entered in this way however as time goes on more and more will appear.

If you have evidence for a maiden name (or alternative surname) and you would like us to add it to the census database, please email me.