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Transcripts of an address on the 1911 Census for Bottesford, Leicestershire

The images on this website are displayed as it is important for potential users of the census search service being offered by the National Archives to be able to judge for themselves the accuracy or otherwise of the information being supplied to them by the National Archives. The search fee though based on the standard National Archives fee for such services is, though justifiable, still a large fee to be found by many researchers it is therefore imperative that they are confident that the transcripts they receive in return are of the highest accuracy possible. These pages contain the first transcripts and images of the 1911 made available to a member of the public and are therefore the only yardstick available to judge whether the proposed service will result in accurate transcripts or whether the general public is going to be disappointed at the quality of the transcripts. In my view the National Archives have produced badly flawed and poorly transcribed results that are not up to the professional standard expected of such an establishment.

Take a look at the transcripts below and the relevant images, compare the written return on the schedule with the National Archives attempted transcription.

Are they accurate transcriptions?

If a professional researcher supplied you with a transcription such as those displayed would you feel that they had delivered a professional result or would you feel they could have done better?

The first item that comes to mind, bearing in mind the Information Commissioner’s decision, is they have not complied 100% with the decision.

The decision stated that the National Archive must furnish all the information requested and took pains to point out that there was no sensitive information on the schedule. By redacting the schedule it is my opinion that the National Archives have left me in the position of imagining there may be further information on the schedule. It is my contention they should have supplied the schedule in full as required by the decision. This also means they should have supplied the information from the other side of the image as that too contains information with regards the property i.e. the address.

Original Schedules held at the National Archives, Kew.

RG14 19650/86 Number 12 High Street, Bottesford
Note the above reference and address were not included in the national Archive transcripts.

Name

Relationship

Age

Marital

No of years married (present marriage)

Children

Occupation

Birthplace

Nationality

Infirmity

& Surname

to head of family

Condition

- Married women only

if born in a Foreign Country

Born to

Still Living

Who have

Industry / service with

Employment status

Deaf

Dumb

Blind

Lunatic

Imbecile

Feeble Minded

present marriage

died

which worker is connected

Barker Winn

Head

Widdower

Bricklayer

Worker

Bottesford, Leicester

British

Can

Neither

Confirm or

Deny

Robert John Winn

Son

Barnstone, Notts

Click here for high resolution image

In the above example the National Archives have failed to record the address and reference of the transcript this is the type of error expected of a naive researcher not the county’s national archive.

They have also failed to record the crossed out entries in the particulars of marriage column this information can sometimes be of importance to a family historian as it may provide a clue to the existence of children of the husband or of a previous marriage. It should be further noted that they have also failed to transcribe the total number of persons appearing on the schedule, the number of rooms in the house and the name and address of the person signing the schedule.

The transcripts also omit the statistician’s codes.

A transcript should provide an accurate copy of the information and not ignore information the transcriber thinks unimportant.
In this example no transcription errors have been made in the individual columns

RG14 19649/65 Number 12 High Street, Bottesford