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Occasional Paper

The 1901 Scottish Census

The first priority for this programme was to scan and digitally capture the returns from the Scottish Census of 31 March 1901, which were available only in unindexed paper format. The returns needed to be made available to the public by January 2002, after the end of the 100-year period during which they were closed to public inspection. The first step towards doing this was to microfilm the enumeration books on 35mm-archive film. Once captured on film, the films were sent to our main contractor for the DIGROS project, Hicad Ltd of Dingwall, who scanned the films to create bitonal digital images at a density of 200 dots per inch. Hicad were also responsible for the indexing of the 1901 census, which was done offshore, from the scanned images. The result was a separate computer index of around 4.5 million individual names recorded in the 1901 returns. The index entries were linked to the digital images and extensive quality assurance checks were made on the images, index entries and linking, both by Hicad, and by a dedicated team within GROS.

(Click on picture to view full size image)

Entry from the 1901 census for the comedian Harry Lauder

Meanwhile, work was being undertaken within New Register House to procure and set up hardware and software capable of allowing images to be made fully available to staff and customers. As the images were delivered by Hicad, and quality assured by the DIGROS team, they were loaded onto a new Borland AS400 modular storage server, capable of storing 2.5 Terabytes of images. A new higher powered AS400 was also installed to store the 1901 and other existing electronic indexes. The 10-year old terminals used to display the existing indexes at the 100 customer search places in New Register House were also replaced by new IBM PCs with Liquid Crystal Display flat screens ideal for viewing digital images. GROS staff also put together an Internet browser-based system for presenting the linked indexes and images to customers and staff.

Because of the long closure of the 1901 census records, there was known to be much pent-up demand for access to them, from family historians especially. To help spread the demand, and relieve some of the pressure on GROS search rooms, there was a phased release of the records:

November 2001: GROS began deliveries of the unindexed 35mm roll-microfilm to libraries, archives, family-history societies etc who had purchased it.
3 December 2001: Customers in New Register House were able to view roll-microfilm of 1901 census with a searchable electronic index.
24 January 2002: NRH customers in all 100 search places were able to use the digital images of the returns, linked to the searchable electronic index.

Copies of the 1901 images and index were also supplied to OMS Ltd, the GROS's partners in the Scots Origins pay-per-view website. The census was launched online on 24 January 2002, in tandem with Visit Scotland's Ancestral Scotland genealogical tourism website, at a function aboard the Glenlee sailing ship on the Clyde, which was attended by the Tourism Minister and the Registrar General. Despite problems with similar census sites elsewhere in the UK, the launch of the 1901 images online was extremely successful, leading to a tenfold increase in usage of the site. Both online and in New Register House, the images have continued to be in high demand, and also to provoke an increased level of interest in the other records held by GROS, reflected in record levels of extract sales.