More Irish counties going online for 1911 census

The “Future Plans” page on the Irish 1911 census site has recently been updated.

“We have had a number of queries as to timescales for placing future counties online [at the Irish 1911 census website]. We apologise for the delay in responding to you all.

“Although we placed Antrim, Kerry and Down online in December, we encountered a number of errors in transcription, as well as some missing material. We have requested our partners to review the material with a view to improving accuracy. These three counties, with improved data quality, along with Cork, Donegal, Wexford, Galway and King’s County (Offaly) will be placed online by the end of May.

“Some material was never microfilmed, and has hence has not been digitised (Valentia in Co. Kerry is a case in point). We will supply information about missing material for each county, as well as arranging to have it digitised as soon as we can.

“The National Archives would like to express its appreciation to our users for your very important feedback on transcription errors. This feedback has proved beneficial in our overall assessment of the quality of data being provided by our digitisation partners in this project. It is hoped that corrections submitted by members of the public for Antrim, Kerry and Down will be included in the forthcoming launch, but they may have to wait until the next one due to shortage of resources.

“Further tranches of counties will comprise:

1. Limerick, Mayo,Waterford, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Fermanagh, Kildare, Kilkenny and Leitrim;
2. Londonderry (Derry), Longford, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Queen’s County (Laois), Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Westmeath and Wicklow.

“At present, we hope to be placing the first listed tranche online by mid-July, and the second tranche by end-August, but this is subject to our being satisfied that the data meets our required levels of accuracy.

“In September, we will be rebuilding the site to include full transcription of all of the data on the household forms for 1911, including religion, occupation, relationship to head of family, literacy status, marital status, county or country of origin, Irish language proficiency, specified illnesses, and child survival information.

“1901, with all data transcribed, will be launched towards the end of 2009.”