How was the 1911 census managed and produced?

[Anniespangles]

I was watching a Find My Past episode and one of the experts said that in the 1911 census people got to write it up themselves?Does this mean there was no official present? Or did this only happen with the English/Welsh 1911 census?If this is the case does it give more room for the people to lie a little about jobs,children ,who was actually in the house etc.How was it all managed?

[AndrewP]

Hi Annie,

For all the censuses, as with now, each household is given a form to complete. The enumerator would then have collected the form and copied the information from it into the enumeration book for the area. The Scottish household forms were disposed of, so are not available now. Hence on ScotlandsPeople it is the digital images of scanned page(s) of the enumeration book that you see.

For the 1911 census, the household forms for England and Wales were not disposed of. So it is these forms which are online on various genealogy websites. That has the advantage that you may see your ancestor's handwriting, and there are no errors which could be introduced during the copying of the information into the enumeration books. The downside is that you don't see who the neighbours were as you can see on the remainder of the page on a Scottish enumeration book page. The earlier English and Welsh census images are like the Scottish ones, taken from the enumeration books.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Elwyn 1]

I was watching a Find My Past episode and one of the experts said that in the 1911 census people got to write it up themselves?Does this mean there was no official present? Or did this only happen with the English/Welsh 1911 census?If this is the case does it give more room for the people to lie a little about jobs,children ,who was actually in the house etc.How was it all managed?

For the 1901 & 1911 Irish censuses the householder filled them out and the enumerator countersigned them. But to me the enumerators job was not a verification role. It was to help householders complete the form and to correct obvious mistakes eg boxes left blank, illegible information, information that was manifestly improbable, and to delete the odd family pet, but they were not there to verify ages, occupations and so on. If a householder wished to lie about his/her age or profession the enumerator would not be in a position to know or correct it. He simply recorded what the householder said. (It was just the same with the 2011 census).