Logging on to English life 100 years ago

THE Queen Mother is there, so are Charlie Chaplin, JRR Tolkien and Claude Monet. So are more than 32 million of their fellow Edwardians, whose details are published on the internet today as the 1901 census goes online.

The census, the first to go on the internet after the standard 100- year moratorium, will allow amateur historians to trace their family roots. It lists the names, ages, addresses and mental health of the population, painstakingly digitised from more than 1.5 million pages detailing residents of England and Wales. It was published at 9am today by the Public Record Office, which doubled its number of servers to cope with the anticipated interest.

"The census returns are our most popular documents and making them available on the internet means anyone can access information on their ancestors, the history of their house and their local area, as well as gaining an insight into the social and economic conditions of the time," said Alison Webster, project manager.

Among the names listed is that of eight-month-old Elizabeth Angela Bowes-Lyon (later to become the Queen Mother) whose address is given as Walden, Herts. Charles Chaplin is listed as a "music hall artiste".

Other famous names include HG Wells and Florence Nightingale.

Users logging on to the site on www.pro.gov.uk can search under several categories, including name and address, and look at a digital image of the census return for 75p. Another 50p buys the details of all other people listed at that address.

Copyright 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.