Just a heads up; this is now available online at
http://www.1911census.co.uk/.
I've already increased my knowledge of my family; I knew my father had a sister but had no idea he also had a younger brother.

Chris fantastic i can see who lived in me house in 1911 lol

WOW

They say it will be another 2 years for Scotland to get this.

Cool I love looking through the census records!

In readiness for the 1911 census coming to Ancestry, they have released the summary books online that show;

Street names
Type of building (private house, type of shop etc)
Head of the house
In-habited or un-habited
Number of males/females in the property

Gives you a fab overview of a street and what was there at the time of the census

Do you only have to put in the street name.

You can search by name which is a bit hit and miss as the summary books list the names by title and surname but the search by street address option is there as well.

I'm working my way round the streets of Wallasey at the moment where my Hubby's family were living at the time of the census

Is this open to anyone or do you have to sign up on the site?

Have a look on Ancestry . co.uk, they have an offer for two free weeks, won't get it all though.

I've been following the 1911 census for a while doing family history. The nice bit is that the household summary, which was filled in by the householder, is your relation's actual hand writing. Or in my ancestors case's the scribbling out, ink blots, and general messy mistakes!

I'm waiting for the 1921 census to solve a family mystery (insert a banging your head against a brick wall smiley here!!)

I am bordering on saying, what a waste of money, but i will hold my tongue for a bit longer.

Stick with it Bert,no pain no gain!

I'm forming the opinion that you can't confirm some ancestors conclusively unless you already have certain information to hand, and if you have that information, you don't need Ancestry sites.

Link click on show advanced to search by address

Just to point out this is a subscription site but they are running a 14 day free trial at the moment

Not sure if you're referring to my comment about a family brick wall Bert. If so, we know very little about a family member as he died in his 40's when his Daughter was 5 years old so she had no memories of him and her Mother never spoke of her late Husband. There are no photos and no other helpful information to trace this Man further exists. We do know that he was living in New Brighton in 1921 and where thanks to his marriage certificate so the 1921 census should tell us where he was born which is the brickwall.

No Lisa i was referring to mine and generalising a little bit, I would find out more on my dads side, if i was researching a brick wall.

Fair enough

I found out my dad's dad had 2 elder brothers no-one knew about. Give me something to go on and I will look it up for you Bert. PM me if you want me to.

It is frustrating until you find a lead.Let the Captain see if he comes up with something and it will get you underway.

Oh yes I know that brick wall too... Grandfather of mine, born Isle of Man, all the elders in the family say he had 2 older brothers...Well I can find nothing whatsoever relating to him having to brothers....so I've been banging my head on that brick wall for around 10 years now!!!

Maisie, if you'd like a second pair of eyes, pm me the details and i'll have a look for you

brick walls don't you just love them!
i have a few ireland,isle of man found lots of info on the family history got back to 1790 using ancestry
know searching old parish records

Another 10 years before the 1921 one comes out. I've built quite a family tree from the census issues up to now. The lead from one gives me the hint for another, all I have to do now is collate it all. Thanks to Ancestry found my Nan's brother was killed in India during WWI, or should I say died in India. There are all kinds of relatives still around on the Wirral who we have lost touch with over the years. Depends also whether you go up the paternal path or the maternal path, they lead to places totally unsuspected. It's dead interesting and fills a lot of time in that's for sure. Good hunting.

Thats the sad thing about. there are some people , ni my past whom I'd loved to have met, sadly "time" is a barrier

ah nomad, you noticed it. good man.

On my Mothers side i found it easy getting right back, on saying that I've got loads of Birth, Marriage and Death certificates to help, i even found out my great grandmother was Welsh, spit, spit, spit, spit, I would rather have a Nazi war criminal show up.
Thankfully i have had lots of offers off here with help on my Dads side, With thanks to Captain America, he's having a look for me, I thought i would let him throw himself off the Mersey suspension Bridge first, thanks to everyone else who has offered help.

Naughtie Bertie!!!

That made me chuckle ! My Welsh side means i've been researching Davies,Davis, Jones and Owens. Great fun

Unlucky Lisa, Captain America came up trumps for me, a little bit of info, something to go on hopefully.

Whats all this on Ancestry BDM, a name, date and place comes up and nothing else, or am i missing something.

It takes some sorting out bert, that's a fact. With the info you have then if you go to the census forms you can piece together the rest of the family and then expand your tree, not much of a hobby but it passes an hour. It depends on how interested you are really as it takes lots of cross referencing. We've got Welsh as well and the ones in Wales are very helpful, that's on the maternal side. The paternal side is Jocks and Paddies and the records are a bit sparse there. Got to dig all the stuff out again after the move and get it sorted, many happy hours to go. I'm a bit disappointed with the 1911 census info, after the long wait there is very little there, unlike the earlier ones. Maybe there is more to come yet.

The census forms are interesting and good enough, your right the 1911 is disappointing, The year of birth can be worked out on the census, near enough, but whats the point of the BDM section when it just gives you a name and place, it could be anyone, you would have thought it would include spouse or parents etc.

Perhaps i shouldn't expect to click on a name and they come walking through the door, I wanted to tell that bloke he was a silly fooker for losing all his money on a horse.

On my maternal side I've got back as far as 1198 (via Birmingham, Oxford and London) mainly using free sites like familysearch. To be honest, I'm not really interested - it's just a list of names which mean nothing to me. However, nearly all the family on my Dad's side (back to 1750) are from the Wirral and were among the tens of thousands who moved from villages like Neston, West Kirby and Greasby in the 19th century to find work during the huge growth of Birkenhead. This means that many of the addresses shown on the census forms are still there which makes it much more interesting. Family history can be very time-consuming but also fascinating.

the only way to get more info is to send away to registrars office and order bmd certificates used to be £7 each
marriage certs give only address where bride and groom live and occupation and fathers names
births certs provide mothers maiden name fathers name and occupation and address where born
i spent about £70 altogether

The only problems i have with sending away for certificates are, they might be the wrong ones, on the ancestry site, i can't convince myself conclusively that what i am needing to send away for are in fact the correct family members,I'm happy enough with the information on the census forms, but with the limited info in the BDM section, it could cost a lot of money on what won't turn out to be family members.

i take it you must have fairly common names,yes big problem if lots of same name same district same year
if you do send away do it direct with registry office its cheaper and also you can ask them to check maybe suspected maiden name and if its wrong one there is no charge
hope this helps
julie

http://www.free-genealogy.co.uk/1911census.html

Can onlly get to 1760 at the moment, the Jocks won't release their census gen for some reason, or at least not to Ancestry. Not sure if it is Glasgow or Ireland at that stage. I'll get there though. It is throwing some good insights though.

1760 i thought the census only started in 1841

This one for Jocks

http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

I suppose the parish records go back further, not got back that far yet, anyone on the 1841 census over 80ish would be back to 1760.

Have a try here Bert (it's free!!)https://www.familysearch.org/

Just come off it funny enough, thanks, the bricks are getting harder, will be back on it though, did find some info, but on the side of the family thats not the problem.

its very interesting i found a lot of skeletons in the cupboards but also became facinated with ww1 research after finding a few ancestors that were killed one in france and another in jerusalem

Oh you are so right, on my paternal grandmother's side, I've gone back as far as my 20th great grandfather. One link leads onto another. I've uncovered quite a few skeletons over the years too!!!

Have you tried http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/ the searches are free. Or there's the FreeBMD website. I found alot of mine through those. They have been a god send to me over the last couple of years.

I haven't Maisie, thanks for the tip, all very welcome.

I found them all very useful over the last few years, if you google CheshireBMD or LancashireBMD. They are the most local to us. But with the UKBMD you can search other regions of the country!!!
Happy Hunting!!!

For wirral parish register details have you tried this site:

http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~cprdb/

Some of the details go back to 17th century. No good for 20th century though.

I'm always very grateful for a heads up, but dear lord, what were they all smoking when they put that site together.

If you use the free sites like Cheshire BDM don't get too down hearted if you can't find the results that you're after.

They're often very good for the mid to late Victorian period but don't have much on them earlier than 1840 or later than 1930. Basically, not all the years are covered, so just because you can't find something on these sites doesn't mean that a record of it doesn't exist somewhere else.

I agree that it's not very user friendly but there's still a load of useful info there if you persevere. The most annoying thing is that it only searches for the exact name you put in and doesn't pick up variants like ancestry or findmypast do. I had problems finding people on my Upton side of the family but then found them by searching for Uption, Upshon and Upshone!

Yep! I'm with you on that one. A bit of lateral thinking goes a long, long way.

Yes, geekus. I think it also gives us an insight into how our ancestors pronounced their names in the local dialect. Bearing in mind that most people were illiterate until mid 19th century (at least, mine were!) it was down to the parish clerks and census takers to record what they heard. I had trouble finding a great grandfather Duncan in the early censuses but eventually found him recorded as Dunkin and Dunking. Presumably that's how he pronounced it.

...exactly! People often wrote things phonetically. Plus the fact that some of those parish clerks had handwriting like doctors!! Not all of them (some of the records are quite beautiful) but it only takes one bad transcript to throw your research.

Also annoys me when they abbreviate peoples christian names in official records and your not sure what they mean.

I agree with the above, the Cheshire parish site i had a go on and found a possible whos occupation was described as XREVD XMR, Bletchley Park springs to mind.

Have you tried the Electoral Rolls? And if he served in either of the World Wars, there's Army Records, and also something very useful called the "Absent Voters List", which can also give some valuable information such as a soldier's army number and home address.

Hopefully I'm not telling you what you've already tried. Let me know if it helps!

Surely that's ex Reverend and Ex er.... Minister? Defrocked for being naughty, or is that just my family? Well don't think Bletchley was going then anyway.

Found this in the site's guidance notes:

Occupation/rank code (in Occupation cell):
X before name = a title (e.g. XSir, XMrs, XCaptain)
N.B. X widow = when ‘widow’ is a title (e.g. ‘Widow Smith’), not a relationship

Looks like bert's ancestor was known as Reverend Mister...(??) which makes some sort of sense.

I gave up on that site due to skin missing on forehead, may revisit now its starting to grow back again, thanks.

Would anyone be kind enough to tell me what was the number of the Enumeration district for Borough rd Birkenhead, 1911 census, much obliged.

Bert, as there are 311 properties recorded for Borough Road they may be spread over a couple of districts.

The full reference for 1 Borough Road (Borough Hotel) is:
RG14PN21961 RG78PN1308 RD452 SD1 ED4 SN57

Where:
RG14 14 is the number that identifies the records as household schedules
PN Stands for Piece Number, which is an individual volume of records
RD Is the Registration District
SD Is the Registration Sub District
ED Is the Enumeration District
SN Is the Schedule Number within the Household Schedules (RG14)

I use findmypast which allows a search by address, so give me a shout if it's a particular one you're looking for.

Thank you Nightwalker.

Hi, just been looking on that site and found some relatives in the burial records. Is there a way to tell from these records where they are buried. Thanks !

If it's the CPRdb site you're talking about, cookie, these are records of churchyard burials. If you click on the green button in the notes column of the entry you're interested in, it will give you details of the church.

It is hun ! Thank you !!