1921 Scottish Census

[ElizabethHerts]

https://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/news/queens-university-belfast-awarded-contract-to-transcribe-1921-scottish-census/?fbclid=IwAR2cpMiYmeeYXtQABrr0FzFpL59hdmS3nivIqFAz h0Vv-AYpMtlI-ZTyUGk

I should be able to find my father, grandparents and my grandmother's parents and my great-great-grandmother.

[kiterunner]

Due to be released in the latter half of 2022 but the contract was only awarded in January this year and it allows for two six-month extensions, so don't hold your breath!

[Olde Crone]

Oh, I cannot wait, but am astonished to learn they haven't even started it yet!

Where was my grandmother? Was she really in an orphanage? Where was her future husband, my grandfather? Was he really living with his wicked stepmother, or was he in a home for naughty boys, as a cousin once let slip?

Sooner rather than later, please.

OC

[JBee]

Yes there's a lot more of the Scottish ones I need.

Wonder where fil was in 1921 as he was shipped off to Canada couple of years later as a 15 year old trainee farmer with the Salvation Army.

[kiterunner]

Scotland's People is going to be down for maintenance on Wednesday of this week. Dare I hope they will be adding the 1921 census while they "upgrade and migrate storage"?

[ElizabethHerts]

Scotland's People is going to be down for maintenance on Wednesday of this week. Dare I hope they will be adding the 1921 census while they "upgrade and migrate storage"?

I wondered precisely that, Kate. I've been using the site over the weekend and keep seeing the announcement.

[Olde Crone]

Ooh, fingers crossed! I've waited a very long time for the information that I have a hunch I will find.

OC

[JBee]

Oh I do hope so.

[ElizabethHerts]

Scotland's People's Facebook page is still maintaining "before the end of the year".

I know nothing about this, but someone posted, "Looking forward to it, but such a shame it is the enumerators' transcriptions rather than the original which our ancestors filled in."

Apparently, the Scottish equivalent of the 1939 Register won't be released until its centenary, under the 100-year rule.

[kiterunner]

But there is the 1931 Scottish census to look forward to in about 10 years' time.

[ElizabethHerts]

But there is the 1931 Scottish census to look forward to in about 10 years' time.

Oh, gosh, I don't want to think about my age then!

[kiterunner]

The latest issue of WDYTYA magazine says that the 1921 Scottish census will be released "at the end of 2022". Do they mean New Year's Eve?

[ElizabethHerts]

From Facebook:

Get your clicking fingers ready: the 1921 Census is coming to ScotlandsPeople!

The 1921 census will be opened at 9 am tomorrow morning, available to search and view. Find your parents, grandparents or even earlier generations among 4.8 million individual records.

https://www.facebook.com/ScotlandsPeople

[kiterunner]

Exciting! I think some of my g-grandmother's half-siblings should be on it.

[kiterunner]

I don't see anything saying how much it will cost to view, so I assume it will cost 6 credits / £1.50 same as the other censuses.

[ElizabethHerts]

I wonder if the site will crash!

[Olde Crone]

Ooooh!!!

Stupidly excited!

OC

[JBee]

It's 10 credits for Wills etc so will just have to wait and see. Got my credits ready.

[maggie_4_7]

From Facebook:

Get your clicking fingers ready: the 1921 Census is coming to ScotlandsPeople!

The 1921 census will be opened at 9 am tomorrow morning, available to search and view. Find your parents, grandparents or even earlier generations among 4.8 million individual records.

https://www.facebook.com/ScotlandsPeople

Blimey :eek:

[maggie_4_7]

I wonder if the site will crash!

There is that of course, hopefully their 24 hour maintenance and rejigging has made it ready.

*goes off to buy even more credits*

[maggie_4_7]

Message on SP

Upcoming Essential Maintenance
ScotlandsPeople will be offline from 06:00 to 09:00 GMT on Wednesday the 30th of November ahead of publication of the 1921 census. Thank you for your patience.

Edit: it will probably be a right old scrum at 9am then again I might be surprised and it will go swimmingly.

[Merry]

I can't find anything I need to look for :o;(

[maggie_4_7]

Well my Scottish grand father and mother Richard Geddes Young and Agnes McEwan plus my father at aged 3 and his 4 older siblings and also my Scottish grandmother's father and mother my great grand father and mother William McEwan and Mary Ann Walker Wilson they lived into the mid 1930s. The other side the Youngs had died already. I dont think I will learn much more than i know but will be nice to see where they are, also some wider family whereabouts that seem to disappear after the 1901 census.

[ElizabethHerts]

Well my Scottish grand father and mother Richard Geddes Young and Agnes McEwan plus my father at aged 3 and his 4 older siblings and also my Scottish grandmother's father and mother my great grand father and mother William McEwan and Mary Ann Walker Wilson they lived into the mid 1930s. The other side the Youngs had died already. I dont think I will learn much more than i know but will be nice to see where they are, also some wider family whereabouts that seem to disappear after the 1901 census.

I'm hoping a lot of mine are together so that I don't need too many credits.
I have bought £10 worth but I still had a few left.
My father was born in 1920 and he and his parents should still be there. Shortly afterwards they moved to England. They might be with my grandmother's parents. Hopefully my grandmother's sisters are still at home as my grandmother was the eldest.

I've made a list of people still alive in 1921 to find. A few of the families emigrated to New Zealand and the USA and Canada.

[JBee]

I was disappointed to find my mother in the English 1921 census still at home with her family in Sunderland when I hoped she'd gone into service in Yorkshire - will probably never know now where that was.

Hope to find father in law in Edinburgh just before he goes to Ontario, Canada as a trainee farmer with the Salvation Army aged 15. Still don't know why he went - perhaps the census will tell me if he isn't at home. I didn't find him in the 1930 Canadian or US census's.

[maggie_4_7]

Voila.

I made a mistake yesterday I said my father would be 3 he was born Nov 1919 so he was 1 year 7 months :d

A bit of a surprise my grandfather had his two youngest half sisters, Maggie/Madge and Jessie living with him and his family but their parents were dead.

Edit: actually Maggie and Jessie's father Andrew Caddies was still alive it was only my grandmother that had died and my grandfather who wasn't their father.

[ElizabethHerts]

I can't find mine!

There are too many alternatives and you can't specify the place of birth, which is stupid.

[JBee]

Got two I was looking for and then found another who I still can't find the death for but she is still where she was in 1911.

Elizabeth - have you got them in the 1911 census - if so try that location in the 1921.

[ElizabethHerts]

Got two I was looking for and then found another who I still can't find the death for but she is still where she was in 1911.

Elizabeth - have you got them in the 1911 census - if so try that location in the 1921.

This is why I dislike Scotland's People. I have wasted two attempts. They should be in the Glasgow/Lanarkshire area but can't find any trace of them.

My father was born in 1920 and no sign of him at all!

I tried searching for my grandmother's family by putting in one of her sister's names - Robina. I got the wrong family.
I wish you could specify the birth place as my great grandfather was born in Kincardineshire.

[ElizabethHerts]

I have now found my great-great-grandmother in Aberdeen with her two unmarried daughters.

It won't be so easy to find the others.

[maggie_4_7]

This is why I dislike Scotland's People. I have wasted two attempts. They should be in the Glasgow/Lanarkshire area but can't find any trace of them.

My father was born in 1920 and no sign of him at all!

I tried searching for my grandmother's family by putting in one of her sister's names - Robina. I got the wrong family.
I wish you could specify the birth place as my great grandfather was born in Kincardineshire.

So was your father born in Lanarkshire?

I might be teaching you to suck eggs but the registration districts are dodgy in Glasgow. If you search only put county.

Oh and a big age range of 10 years.

[JBee]

Maybe they're still in Kincardineshire instead of Glasgow.

How many Robina's did you get in the age range you were looking for?

Mind you I have never found the 1881 census entry for OH's grandfather who was born in 1879- irrc he wasn't with his mother.

[ElizabethHerts]

I have got my great-grandparents and their three unmarried daughters at Govan Hill where they were in 1911. They had been entered on the census return as Johnstone and not Johnston.

However, the search facility is rubbish. I had to try three different permutations to find them.

[ElizabethHerts]

My father was born at Govan Hill in March 1920 and baptised at the parish church in May 1920.

My grandfather was in the Royal Flying Corps until 1919. He was an aeronautical engineer and was born in Stretford, Lancashire. He moved around for his work a lot (Coventry, Isle of Wight, Liverpool, Farnborough, etc).
I couldn't find them in the 1921 Census for England and Wales so thought they were probably still in Scotland. I thought he might have been working there after his marriage.

[kiterunner]

I really do think that if SP insist on having exclusive rights to the 1911 and 1921 censuses, they should improve the search facility. I remember with older censuses that there were people I could never find until the other sites acquired indexes and I could use their better searches. I feel that SP have always worked on the assumption that everyone in Scotland always stayed in the same place where they were born, and of course that is far from the truth.

[ElizabethHerts]

I really do think that if SP insist on having exclusive rights to the 1911 and 1921 censuses, they should improve the search facility. I remember with older censuses that there were people I could never find until the other sites acquired indexes and I could use their better searches. I feel that SP have always worked on the assumption that everyone in Scotland always stayed in the same place where they were born, and of course that is far from the truth.

I wholeheartedly agree, Kate. Johnston is such a common surname but if I could specify birth place I'm sure I'd find results much more quickly, without wasting credits. My Scottish ancestors started moving around a lot in the latter half of the 19th century.

If I could search my grandfather using his birth place in Lancashire, I'd have a better chance of finding him. His surname was Alexander, but the family originally hailed from Wiltshire, not Scotland!

[Olde Crone]

Oh, what a surprise - but not the one I thought I was going to have, lol. Grandmother is living with her widowed father and six siblings, four of whom I didn't know existed. Lots of new stuff to research then.

But still no closer to the truth.

OC

[kiterunner]

That's exciting, OC.

[Olde Crone]

Kate, it's exciting but also puzzling - why didn't my mother ever mention them, including a set of twins!

OC

[kiterunner]

The price to view a census image is 6 credits / £1.50, same as for the other censuses, but what on earth is the census certificate that you can order for £12?

[ElizabethHerts]

Please could I have some help finding my father and his parents in 1921?
I don't expect anyone to view a census return, just see if they are any better finding them than me.

We should also check the England and Wales census, I suppose.

I think I might post details on the Sensitive Research board.

[maggie_4_7]

Please could I have some help finding my father and his parents in 1921?
I don't expect anyone to view a census return, just see if they are any better finding them than me.

We should also check the England and Wales census, I suppose.

I think I might post details on the Sensitive Research board.

Okay.

[ElizabethHerts]

Thanks, Maggie.

[JBee]

One problem I had with English 1921 was that the surname and first name were reversed so only found it by accident. Other one is where they only put the two Christian names and no surname so had to search using Christian names as surnames

[ElizabethHerts]

One really annoying feature is the stupid green box saying "Need help?" that obliterates a couple of names and ages of the search results.

[JBee]

Click on it and hopefully it goes away

[ElizabethHerts]

Click on it and hopefully it goes away

Not for me!

[kiterunner]

I had to refresh the page to get rid of it. Also move my cursor before refreshing.

[Olde Crone]

Not sure if this has always been so, but when I search deaths without entering mother's maiden name, I get a huge long list with no mother's maiden names showing, which is what you would expect. When I repeat the search using mother's maiden name, I get only one result, which I know to be correct - but it still isn't showing mother's maiden name.

(I think I mentioned before that my search page has changed and I have to scroll down for miles before I see any results at all.)

OC

[kiterunner]

If I search for deaths with surname Frederick, with phonetic matching selected, and mother's maiden name Melville, it comes up with 23 results, but it only shows the maiden name for 14 of them, and I have not ticked the box for "Include unrecorded mother's maiden surname." The MMN is shown for older records and not for those after, presumably, 1974. The help info about searching deaths says "Mother’s maiden surname - this wasn't included in the statutory index of deaths until 1974. The information is being added retrospectively starting with the early years although you may find it in some later entries as a result of individual record updates" so I assume 1974 is the cut-off, but I have no idea why it can't display post-1974 MMN's.

[kiterunner]

I have looked at their help pages about certificates but there doesn't seem to be anything about census certificates, apart from saying "You can also order official certified paper copies of census records", but it does include censuses in the certificate search. I don't know why someone would want one though.

[Olde Crone]

Yes, an odd little hitch. Perhaps it will right itself eventually, although it isn't as informative as SP may think - many of my Scottish relatives were a bit confused when they were asked for the mother's maiden name of the deceased and gave either their own or someone else's, certainly not the mmn of the deceased!

OC

[kiterunner]

I am finding that the "beginning with" option is not working for given names on the 1921 census -looking for names beginning with Mary I is just finding anyone named Mary.

[JBee]

Just wasted some credits as I thought i'd found another uncle of OH - turns out it was grandson of the head and not the son as listed.

[Olde Crone]

My excitement turned into a bit of a damp squib in the end. No further forward with my grandmother and the four previously unknown siblings have emerged as - one died young, no children, another died young unmarried, the third has a name too common to pin down, another married and had no children!I

However, it's made me look again at the family as a whole and I've found more information (not from the census though) and disproved some absolute tripe I was told by a contact years ago - I suspected it was tripe, now I can prove it!

The search on SP is still playing up for me. Yesterday it wouldn't let me amend a search, I had to go away from the form, come back and start again. Off to see what it will do today.

OC