Newsletter – 20th March
2021
CENSUS SPECIAL
EDITION
Will this be the last England & Wales census?
How to save a copy of
your 2021 Census data
The LostCousins
newsletter is usually published 2 or 3 times a month. To access the previous issue
(dated 14th March) click here; to find earlier articles use the customised Google search between
this paragraph and the next (it searches ALL of the newsletters since February
2009, so you don't need to keep copies):
To go to the main
LostCousins website click the logo at the top of this newsletter. If you're not
already a member, do join - it's FREE, and you'll get an email to alert you
whenever there's a new edition of this newsletter available!
Will
this be the last England & Wales census?
It's quite possible that 2021 England & Wales census
will be last - that's certainly what the number-crunchers would like. For more
than a decade policymakers and politicians have been advocating the transition
to an entirely new type of census, one based on second-hand data, rather than information
collected directly from the people who live in this country.
Most of us feature in a wide range of records: official
records include the Electoral Register, state pension records, and those kept
by the National Health Service, HM Revenue & Customs, the Driver &
Vehicle Licensing Agency, and the Passport Office. But most adults also
show up in other databases, for example those maintained by banks and building
societies, insurers, pension providers, employers, supermarkets, and utility
companies. Children appear in school and nursery registers.
None of the records I've listed in the previous
paragraph are recorded on a 10-year cycle, so I can understand that collecting
data in this way is attractive – it's like having a census that's continually
updated (rather like the 1939 Register). In today's fast-changing world
information that it is nearly 10 years out of date is of limited value.
The fallacy in their reasoning is to assume that we
must have one or the other. Historically the cost of collecting census data has
been considerable – in the order of a billion pounds – but as we transition to
an online census the cost must fall dramatically. If nothing else, collecting
census data from households every 10 years will provide confirmation that the
statistics compiled using 'administrative data' are correct.
Note: the Northern
Ireland census is also taking place tomorrow; it could well go the same way as
the England & Wales census, but I'm not going to attempt to address it separately
as I haven't researched it, and don't have access to it.
The
1921 Census was delayed because of the threat of industrial action, the 1941
Census was cancelled because of the Second World War, and the 2021 Scotland and
Ireland censuses have been postponed until 2022. But the England & Wales
and Northern Ireland censuses are going ahead on the prescribed dsate as if nothing has
happened.
Well,
that's not strictly true – when I logged-in at the census site I got this
message:
So
they're not completely ignoring the fact that we're in lockdown – they’re just
telling us to ignore it. The sensible thing would have been to adapt the census
questions to take account of the exceptional circumstances and capture valuable
information that will inform future generations about this moment in time (and
perhaps help them deal with a future epidemic). But no, this unique opportunity
to record who is shielding, who is bubbling, who is working from home because of the pandemic,
who has tested, who has been vaccinated, who has had COVID-19, and who - tragically
- has lost loved ones…. all of these things have been ignored by the very
people we trust to collect our data.
I'm
sure many will point to the new, voluntary questions about gender and sexuality
and argue that they're relatively unimportant – but this too is data that has
never been collected before, and there are perfectly valid reasons why local
authorities need this information. In this digital age we shouldn't have to
trade off one against the other, particularly since the ONS claim that completing
the census will only take around 10 minutes per person.
There
was no census during the Spanish Flu epidemic – by June 1921 it was all over
bar the grieving – but in 2021 we had a once in century opportunity to collect data
related to the COVID-19 epidemic, and the Office for National Statistics has
let us down. Who cares if it would have taken an extra 5 minutes to fill in the
form? 5 minutes in a century is just a drop in the ocean.
Note:
I know what the ONS's excuse would be: "It takes 10 years to prepare for a
census"; my response to that would be: "It used to take 10 years or
more to develop and test a new vaccine". Move with the times, people!
How
to save a copy of your 2021 Census data
As this could be the last England & Wales census
it's more important than ever to keep a copy of your census form so that your
own relatives don't have to wait until 2122 to see the information.
In 2011 completing the census online was optional –
every household was sent a form; but this time completing the census online is
the default – as far as I can tell paper household schedules are only available
on request.
You might think that as it’s your data the Office
for National Statistics would make it easy for you to keep a copy, but they don't
– in fact they do very little to help. Fortunately it's not difficult to keep a
copy for posterity.
IMPORTANT: YOU MUST READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE
COMPLETING THE CENSUS!
There
are different ways to keep a record of the census – think carefully about what
is the best solution for you:
- If you have a paper form you
could photocopy, scan, or photograph it after filling it in, but before
sending it off
- Even if you don't have a paper
form you could download and print out
the form used in the 2019 trial (which is virtually the same)
However
keeping a digital copy of the census has many advantages – and you can always
print it out at some future date. In this case there are two main options:
- Save the pages which summarise the
answers for each section (in PDF format)
- Save the individual pages as you
complete them; this takes significantly longer but provides a much better
record of the census experience
All
of the major browsers allow you save web pages in PDF format, and you can use
this to save the summary pages.
If
you use the Chrome browser (as I usually do), click the three dots at
the top right to open up the menu, then choose Print. Your normal printer
(if you have one) will probably show up as the default Destination, but if
you click the arrow to open up the dropdown one of the options will be Save
as PDF, which allows you to create a file in PDF format:
If you have Windows 10 another option is to use Microsoft Print to PDF, which produced somewhat larger files during my tests:
The
Opera browser offers more options – when you click the camera icon you can
either save the whole page as a PDF file or take a screenshot of any part of
the page (even if the whole page doesn't fit on your computer screen).
But
whichever browser you use, saving the page in PDF format only works for the
summary pages, and pages where there is no input. To get around this problem
you need to screenshot the page, which is easiest to do using Microsoft Edge
(make sure you have a recent version, as it has gone through a major transformation).
Using
Edge click the three dots at the top right to open the menu, then
choose Web capture and choose Full page to capture a
screenshot of the entire web page, including your input; then click the floppy
disk icon to save the JPG file to your Downloads folder. As an extra precaution
I checked each image.
Tip: when you've
finished copy the files from the Downloads folder to a new folder named 2021
Census; at this point you might want to rename the files (but it's a chore that
I've left for another day).
Finally, whichever option you choose, it's a good
idea to check the file that you have created before going on to the next
page of the census. It's a bit tedious, but it’s a once a decade event, so why
not make absolutely certain?
Note:
some of you will no doubt have found other ways of saving your census entries.
If so, feel free to post them on the LostCousins Forum for the benefit of
members who haven't submitted their census form – but please don't write to me
as I've already sent mine in.
The
Householder is responsible for ensuring that the census form is completed, so
who is the 'Householder' and what is a 'household'? Here's what we're told
about the latter:
But
who is the 'Householder'? The leaflet that came through the post tells us that:
So
both my wife and I are householders – we'd better fill it in together! The next
question is, who counts as a member of the household – here's what it says
online:
After
you've entered the people who live in your household the website double-checks:
I'm
including this information here partly to keep it on record, and partly so that
when you complete the census tomorrow you are forewarned.
There's
a question relating to second homes that will have some people scratching their
head: there is currently a ban on holidays, as well as a ban on overseas travel
- so how is anyone supposed to know whether they'll be able to spend 30 days or
more in their holiday home in 2021?
This
article on the BBC
News site has background information about the census, and you'll find more
about censuses on this page
at the National Archives site.
This is where any major updates and corrections will be
highlighted - if you think you've spotted an error first reload the newsletter
(press Ctrl-F5) then
check again before writing to me, in case someone else has beaten you to
it......
I'll be back soon with a regular newsletter – until then please stay
safe!
Peter Calver
Founder, LostCousins
© Copyright 2021 Peter Calver
Please do NOT copy or republish any part of this newsletter
without permission - which is only granted in the most exceptional
circumstances. However,
you MAY link to this newsletter or any article in it without asking for
permission - though why not invite other family historians to join LostCousins
instead, since standard membership (which includes the newsletter), is FREE? To
link to a specific article right-click on the article name in the contents list
at the top of the newsletter.