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Census data helps chart the history of a country. It helps shape the future planning for education, health, transport and infrastructure.
Australia has taken a census every decade since 1911, and every five years since the 1960’s.
To date, all census data has been paper based, forms delivered to every household in the country, completed by the householder and the forms collected.
It was census night this week and this census was to be completed online, for the first time. A paper form had to be requested via a specific phone helpline.
But things didn’t go to plan.
Amid concerns over privacy and the security of the online information, the web site crashed early evening on census night and was down for over twenty four hours. Politicians and government officials pointed blame in various directions, including hackers. I won’t go into those details.
I have completed our census information this evening, online. As expected, there were questions about each of the people staying at the address on the specific night, their work, income, education, where they were born. There were questions about the number of bedrooms in the property, how many cars for the household, was there internet access.
I have another view of census data. It has been a valuable source of information when searching my family tree.
In England, a census has been taken every ten years since 1801, with the exception of 1941 during the Second World War. 1841 was the first census to record the names of every individual.
From a genealogy point of view, census records from 1841 to 1911 are available online, for a fee. Census data is closed for one hundred years.
My maternal great grandparents were easy to find in 1901 in London. I knew the names and make up of those families but I was fascinated by the additional information, occupation, about the home, three families living at the one address, other occupants in the street. Each census provides a snapshot in time.
I wonder what future generations will think about this week’s census data.
Here is an extract from the English 1901 census, although not my own family.
RuthsArc 
Yes what a drama over the census Ruth – we’ve yet to do ours gave up trying earlier in the week so will try and do it over the weekend! Agree though that censuses are a great way of discovering your past – I’ve gone back to the 1841 census with one line of my family in London (and in fact earlier in the century using parish records since corroborated by a distant cousin of my dad’s who has researched it all the hard way!). It’s fascinating what you can discover – my relatives were all artisans and trades people – trunk makers, dress makers, milliners and lived in the east end and then Piccadilly and Marylebone. Would love to know more about their daily lives – must have been quite a tough existence!
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Yes, Rosemary, the records are fascinating. I too have traced back to 1841, farm labourers in Essex before family moved to Chelsea. Domestic servants, cooks but also a painter. I enjoyed looking for siblings when all in their teens to see where they were living, away from parents at very young ages. True, it must have been a tough existence. Good luck completing your census. It took less than ten minutes for the two of us.
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Yes we better get on with ours too Ruth! I am fascinated by family lineage – our daughter is now living in a similar part of London to my forebears and I also went to UCL in central London but had no idea my ancestors had lived round there (and the East End too!).
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I’ve done a lit of family history research using census records. It’s really interesting to see some of the older records. The U.S. has taken a census every 10 years since 1790, although the 1890 census was destroyed, I think by a fire. They release these detailed records once they are at least 70 years old, so I’ve used every one through the 1940 census. So fun – family research like this is like being a detective.
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Thanks for commenting. It is interesting to hear about the records of other countries. I got totally absorbed when researching my family, definitely like being a detective.
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Oh Ruth, the census, what a drama. Census night is always on my birthday night and I’ve kind of enjoyed doing it, I have a love of numbers and love finding out some of the stats when they release them. I was going to stay in this birthday but then I got a surprise call from a friend who decided to stay in town another night so that he could take me to dinner and come home for a movie and dessert after. We planned to do the census over a bottle of wine but alas, it was already shut down by the time we got home. I didn’t realise of course, and just kept hitting the login button. He’s gone home now of course, but we still haven’t done it.
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