Great news for those of us who are searching for more recent info on our UK ancestors as the 1911 census will be available here starting 2007.

However, it should be noted that in order to read any entries you will need to pay a non-refundable fee of 45 pounds AND have the address that you want to look at. Why? Well it’s not indexed yet. An indexed version is not expected to be available until 2009.

More important, however, is the fact that this census is being released early as a result of a request by Guy Etchells to look at a particular record for Bottesford in Leicestershire. This request was granted by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas via the Freedom of Information legislation. This is believed to be the first successful ruling of this kind, despite TNA’s attempt to block the release on the grounds of confidentiality. The ruling held that confidentiality could only be applied to details of people’s health or mental infirmity, which did not apply in the case of the particular record requested. This certainly opens up the possibility of more census records being made available early.