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1911 Census complete!
We’ve completed the 1911 Census. All the records are online and the transcriptions are finished, which means you can search for your relatives just like you would in our other census records, 1841–1901.
This is our most anticipated release for years. As well as letting you fill in gaps in your recent family, it reveals crucial details not included in previous census records.
Many of you will have grandparents or even parents who were alive in 1911. This often makes it easy to find your family — assuming you can guess at details like where they lived and when they were born. It also really brings your discoveries to life, as you may well have met the people you’re reading about.
Extra detail
The key difference with the 1911 Census is that each household has its own page. This is because you're given the individual forms filled in by each family, rather than the enumerators' notes that bring them all together. You can read your ancestors' original handwriting, and even see their signatures.
More than that, you’ll often find extra notes that reveal different aspects of their personalities. Several people added summaries of their previous jobs, while one householder wrote: “Would you like to know what our income is and what we had for breakfast?”
You’ll also find extra information not provided in earlier censuses. This is often known as the fertility census, because it tells you how long couples had been married, and the number of children born to that marriage — both alive and dead.
Plus, you can see the industries your forebears worked in, alongside their standard job titles. This can be fascinating information, as many people changed trade in the
aftermath of the Industrial Revolution.
To help you pick out every detail, we've created a unique record viewer, especially for this census. This brings your ancestors' entries to life like never before. Find out more
The 1911 Census is available to all our members, at no extra cost. Search now
Top tip
Nosing for neighbours
Even though they’re no longer on the same page, don’t forget to look at your ancestors’ neighbours in the 1911 Census — you may find more family members. Use the arrows in the top-right of the record viewer.
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National Probate Calendar — updated!
Our exclusive National Probate Calendar was already the most important online resource for tracing your ancestors’ wills. Now, thanks to a major update, you have twice as many chances to discover what they left behind.
We’ve added more recent records, so you can pinpoint your family’s deaths right into the modern era. We’ve gone further back into time, taking you right back to the start of the original printed Calendar. And we’ve filled in gaps for the years in-between, so you can now search a complete collection from 1858-1966.
Personal details
The National Probate Calendar contains summaries of all the probate court cases across England and Wales. It includes anyone who left any sort of property when they died, whether they made a will or not. That means the vast majority of deaths are covered — from the privileged to the penniless.
Find your ancestors, and you can discover where and when they died, plus how much their estates were worth. Maybe you’ll find a lost fortune in your family tree?
You may also find their last addresses and the names of their next of kin. Plus, you’ll be given all you need to order their complete wills — with tons of information on the possessions they left behind and the people they left them to. Find out how
The Calendar can also help you search other record collections. Perhaps you’re struggling to spot an ancestor
among several people with similar names, either in our Death Indexes or parish burial records? You can use details like the address and the next of kin to confirm the right person, then go back to your original search armed with a date and place of death.
The National Probate Calendar is available to Premium and Worldwide members. Upgrade your membership now
Top tip
Earlier wills
Looking for wills before 1858? We also have several earlier probate collections, covering London, Dorset and other key locations.
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Have you tried... Ancestry.co.uk on Facebook
These days, there’s far more to Ancestry.co.uk than just our main website. You can continue your discoveries with our desktop software Family Tree Maker. You can build your tree on the move with our iPhone and Android apps. And of course, you can interact with our team, and enjoy all kinds of advanced features, on our Facebook page.
Facebook is designed as a social website, so it’s probably no surprise that the main aim of our page is to help you meet like-minded people. You can share your family history stories, your latest discoveries and your opinions on anything and everything — and see what everyone else is sharing. We have almost 50,000 Facebook fans, so you’re bound to pick up some tips that will help you on your family history journey.
Along the way, you’ll bump into various members of the Ancestry.co.uk team. We use Facebook to keep you informed about our latest releases and site changes, so our fans are usually the first to know about anything new. And we’re also happy to join in family history discussions and answer questions about our various services.
New features
The latest addition to our Facebook page is our Hall of Heroes. This is your chance to remember your most courageous ancestors, whether they went to war for their country or fought against the odds at home.
Upload a photo and add your tribute to your family’s hero. Then take a look through the other images in the Hall,
and click on a few to read the incredible stories of bravery.
Right now, we’re also gradually adding milestones for our most useful record collections. You’ll soon be able to use Facebook’s timeline feature to go back through time and see what records we have for various historical periods.
It’s completely free to join Facebook, and you just need to click on ‘Like’ to become a fan of our page. Visit it now
Top tip
Questions & answers
Keep a look out for live chats on our Facebook page. These often give you the chance to get your questions answered by family history experts.
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Ask the experts
Welcome to our Ask the experts section. This is where we answer your questions on all things genealogical, so if you have any pressing queries, send us your questions now*.
If your question doesn't appear here, you can email our Member Services team at support@ancestry.co.uk or call 0800 404 9723, and they'll help you with your research.
This month’s question is answered by Chris Paton. Chris is a professional genealogist with both Scottish and Irish roots, and expert knowledge of records from all over the UK.Lost in Devon
Q. I’ve been trying to locate my great-grandmother, Esther Lillian Stoneman, born about 1877 in Plymouth, Devon. I’ve tried everything to find her birth but have had no success.
She married Thomas Roberts in 1898 in Cardiff, Wales. I’ve found her in the 1901 Census living at 84 Malefant Street, Cardiff, with Thomas and their daughter, but that’s all I’ve been able to find. I know she was alive in 1904 as she had my grandmother, Lilian Esther Roberts.
Please could you help me find a birth and more information on her as I would like to purchase her birth certificate.
Debbie Williams
A. The 1911 Census for Cardiff shows that husband Thomas was a widower, but that he and Esther had in fact had at least three children. The third was a son called Ernest Thomas Roberts, who I’ve found in the Birth Index, born in the third quarter of 1901 in Cardiff.
A search through the Death Indexes flags up a possible death for Esther, though she’s recorded as a Lillian Roberts, aged 31, who died in Cardiff in the first quarter of 1908. It’s worth ordering this certificate, though the record will sadly not confirm any parentage or birthplace details.
In 1901 Esther is noted as aged 26, implying a birth year of about 1874 or 1875. It’s possible that Esther’s birth was in fact registered under another surname, perhaps with her mother remarrying at some stage. It’s worth trying a search of forenames only in the birth indexes in the Plymouth area.
Chris Paton
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