Fascinating glimpse of Britain in 1921 is revealed by census papers that go online today showing how our ancestors lived and worked in the wake of WWI and the Spanish flu pandemic

Daily Mail ^ | 10/27/2021 | Kaya Terry

[Oshkalaboomboom]

An early preview of the 1921 census papers is set to be released on Wednesday showing how our ancestors lived and worked in the wake of WWI and the Spanish flu pandemic.

A sneak peek of the 100-year-old records, which were taken on June 19 1921, will be shown on the family history website Findmypast and hold information about nearly 38 million people who lived in England and Wales.

Under the 1920 Census Act, the 1921 census can't be published online until more than a hundred years have passed.

The public will able to learn more about how their ancestors as the data hold records on people who lived between two wars, during a period of economic turmoil and when women had just won the right to vote.

The First World War's impact on society was the biggest to be reflected in the survey, according to Audrey Collins, records specialist in family history at the National Archives.

'You've got the soldiers who came back damaged either physically or mentally. Lots of people died in the flu pandemic, lots of people were disabled by it. There was a big change in the balance of occupations in particular and the balance of the sexes,' she told the PA news agency.

Genealogy website Findmypast and the National Archives on Wednesday revealed a glimpse into the census findings, which they have spent three years digitising, ahead of next year's publication.

Apart from people's birthplaces, names, ages and jobs, the questionnaire also recorded who lived in a home at that particular time, as well as occupants' relationship to the head of the household - putting their stories in the context of their families and communities.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

I know that to most people family history is a bore (myself included) but Genealogy buffs have been waiting years for this. They even have a countdown clock on some of the family history websites. My wife hit a dead end on the search for a Great Grandfather and she hopes this census will give her new clues. She's sleeping right now but I'm willing to bet she'll go online looking for this as soon as I let her know about it.

[cranked]

Apples and oranges to the Left, especially when science, etc. is as agenda driven as it is today.

[Trinity5]

“Under the 1920 Census Act, the 1921 census can’t be published online until more than a hundred years have passed.”

Hmmm... They knew about the Internet in 1920? Amazing.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Hmmm... They knew about the Internet in 1920? Amazing.

Not really. The H. G. Wells Novella "The Time Machine" was published in 1895 so they already had plenty of warning.

[lizma2]

Started on the net late 1990.

At that time I could find more info on my ancestors than I can now. Now a search just leads to junk.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

My wife is on the website’s Facebook page now. If you want to see the “sneak peek” you have to pay some exorbitant amount of money for each view, and even members only get a 10% discount. There are plenty of comments and very few are flattering.

[outpostinmass2]

My grand parents all born around 1900 told stories about many events they lived through. WW1 and WW2, the depression etc. They never talked about the 1919 pandemic.

[rightwingintelligentsia]

I saw a documentary on the 1918-19 pandemic several years ago that claimed that after we emerged from it it was buried in our collective consciousness and rarely spoken of.

[DugwayDuke]

outpostinmass2 wrote: “My grand parents all born around 1900 told stories about many events they lived through. WW1 and WW2, the depression etc. They never talked about the 1919 pandemic.”

My paternal grandmother died of the spanish flu. BTW, it lasted much longer than 1919.

[Verginius Rufus]

For the US census, the rule has been 72 years. The 1940 census is currently available. The 1950 census should become available next year, unless they change their minds about the rule. The ones which are available can be seen online for free at FamilySearch.org (that does not include the 1890 census which was lost in a fire, or some of the early records which were apparently lost when the British burned the government buildings in Washington in 1814).

[WildHighlander57]

How long -did- it last?

[Flying Circus]

I think you could say that about almost any search topic. In roughly the last 15 years the quality of search results dropped precipitously from what it was in the 90s. The control of search results and propaganda has grown so much in sophistication it makes it difficult to find reliable information.

[lizma2]

Startpage use to have an advanced search option that really let you fine tune your searches but they stopped that about a year ago.

[SunkenCiv]

• What The Great Historian Thucydides Saw In Athens’ Plague—And Our Own [04/08/2020]
• "Work of Every Description Ceased" ~ First hand accounts of the Plague of Justinian, 6th century AD [04/01/2020]
• Plague and Poetry: How Middle East Authors Have Written About Disease [03/30/2020]
• What Social Distancing Looked Like in 1666 [03/30/2020]
• The Worst Diseases in Shakespeare's England [03/28/2020]
• UK 'plague village' offers lesson for a country under lockdown [03/24/2020]
• How 5 of History's Worst Pandemics Finally Ended [03/18/2020]
• Black Death quarantine: how did we try to contain the most deadly disease in history? [03/04/2020]
• Origins Of The Black Death Traced Back To China, Gene Sequencing Has Revealed; A Plague That Killed Over a Third of Europe's Population [02/27/2020]
• Plague in humans 'twice as old' but didn't begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals [07/28/2019]
• CHOLERA-Plague of 19th Century, First Global Epidemic; Day of Fasting proclaimed by President Taylor [07/10/2019]
• Did famine worsen the Black Death? [01/07/2016]
• The Justinian Plague of 562 A.D. an Electromagnetic Drama? [11/02/2015]
• The Mutant Genes Behind the Black Death [10/09/2015]
• Rats reprieved as giant gerbils are blamed for the Black Death [02/24/2015]
• Mankind Has Suffered More from Bugs than Battles! [10/28/2014]
• New study sheds light on survivors of the Black Death [05/30/2014]
• Black Death skeletons unearthed by Crossrail project [03/31/2014]
• Black Death may have scuppered Roman Empire [01/28/2014]
• Plague decoded: Researchers link 2 of the most devastating pandemics in history [01/27/2014]
• How The Bubonic Plague Actually Saved Europe In The 14th Century (Finance) [05/15/2013]
• 'Black Death pit' unearthed by Crossrail project [03/15/2013]
• Medieval plague victims unearthed in City of London square [03/14/2013]
• Cause of the big plague epidemic of Middle Ages identified [10/20/2010]
• Scientists Discover Why Plague Is So Lethal [05/05/2008]
• Gloucester's Roman Mass Grave Skeletons Were Plague Victims (Smallpox?) [04/30/2008]
• Plague Victims Discovered After 1500 Years (Justinian) [04/10/2008]
• Clues to Black Plague’s Fury in 650-Year-Old Skeletons [01/28/2008]
• Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine (Lessons From The Black Death) [10/16/2007]
• Disabling Key Protein May Give Physicians Time To Treat Pneumonic Plague [01/27/2007]
• An Empire's Epidemic (Justinian Plague) [09/18/2006]
• Secret Of Ancient Athens Plague Is Being Unraveled [01/21/2006]
• The Black Plague and its descendants [04/13/2005]
• The Black Plague and its Descendents [04/11/2005]
• Medieval Plague May Explain Resistance to HIV [03/10/2005]
• Bubonic Plague Traced To Ancient Egypt (Black Death) [03/11/2004]
• A 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer already plagued by Yersinia pestis (Yersinia pestis is discovered in a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer from Latvia) [06/30/2021]
• When plague in Italy killed 1.5 million people in a single year ~ Saint Frances of Rome and the Plague of 1656 [03/09/2020]
• GREAT CHASTISEMENT DURING MIDDLE AGES WAS FEROCIOUS SPREAD OF 'BLACK DEATH' [12/03/2009]
• Smallpox Apocalypse [07/24/2002]
• Medieval Black Death Was Probably Not Bubonic Plague [04/15/2002]
• Black Death 'Was Not Plague' Say Experts [04/12/2002]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Oshkalaboomboom.