1881 Census Online >>1881 British Census Available on CD-ROM

1881 British Census Available on CD-ROM

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah— After eleven years and more than two-and-a-half million hours of volunteer labor, the largest census ever to be automated is now available on CD-ROM for home use. The automated 1881 British Census, which contains information for over 30 million individuals, was announced today by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The data comes from England, Wales, and Scotland. (Note: the 1881 census for Ireland does not exist.)

Begun in September of 1987, the automated index is the result of a collective effort of volunteers from the Federation of Family History Societies in the United Kingdom and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every effort was made to reproduce the information as it was originally recorded by the British census takers in 1881. Even obvious errors were left to allow users to make their own evaluation of the information.

Each page of the census (over one million pages) was transferred to microfilm and photocopied, said Richard E. Turley Jr., managing director of the Family History Department. Turley explained that each letter and name of the census was painstakingly copied twice by transcribers, often from almost illegible photocopies or microfilm, then double-checked for accuracy. To protect the integrity of the data during this transfer of historic information, every entry was carefully evaluated a third or fourth time by trained individuals prior to entering it on computer.

The census will be published on twenty-five compact discs, including an eight-disc national index and viewer that allow users to quickly search across the entire database of 30+ million names. To make the census indexes more manageable and easier to use, the data has been divided into eight regions: East Anglia, Greater London, Midlands, North Central, Northern Borders and Miscellany, Southwestern, Wales and Monmouth, and Scotland.

Users will be delighted to find that the census includes enumerations for the Royal Navy in 1881. That means it lists all people living, working, or traveling on a boat or ship at the time the census was taken, said David Rencher, president of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. The Miscellany Region even includes people who lived in poorhouses, mental institutions, workhouses, schools, hospitals, and other nontraditional residences when the census was counted.

The CD-ROM includes the FamilySearch Resource File Viewer 2.0, which allows powerful and flexible search capabilities. Users can tag and make notes for records and download the data into RTF (Rich Text Format). The census is available for purchase in its entirety or by region through the distribution outlets of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The cost for the entire census (25 CDs) is only U.S. $33. To order, call 1-800-537-5971 in the U.S. or order online at http://www.familysearch.org.