National Archives to put 1911 census online

The National Archives said the next census to go online will be the 1911 report in two years time.

The 1911 census will become available in two stages – in 2009 information will start to become available, beginning with data from major cities. The entire census data will be online from January 2012, including high resolution image files of the scanned pages.

The information from the 1911 census currently occupies some two kilometres of shelving at the organisation's home in Kew and is 12 times larger than the 1901 report, which was the first census the National Archives made available online in 2005.

Once it's digitised, the 1911 report will take up 500 terabytes (approximately 500,000GB) of storage space on computer hard disks, and will be accessible over the internet. Earlier census data is also available.

Natalie Ceeney, chief executive of The National Archives, said: "The 1911 census is the first where researchers are able, in most cases, to view their actual ancestors´ handwriting when looking at census entries. This will be an invaluable resource for anyone who is working hard to trace their family's history."

The organisation says it also aims to digitise 100 million pages from its collection, including census data, prisoner of war records and the Domesday Book, by 2012.

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