Genealogy Chat

I am unable to get on to 1901 census, it will not show me the page for the cost.I seem to remember the last time I was able to look at the price it said £5, can you please tell me if it's £5 plus the cost of looking someone up or can I look a few households up for that price? Many thanks Sue...................

£5. is the cost of the cheapest voucher. If you use a credit card it is a £5 lower limit to be used over a short specified time. To look up the full image costs 75p. Ann Glos

Don't forget that if you click on the name, you will only get details for that single person and it will cost you 50p. If you click on the scan image, you get the whole household (including address) for 75p - so a much better deal.

You can tell that 1901 is a government site: designed by a civil servant on an off-day. 48 hours time limit on using purchases via a credit card is ridiculous. And I've got caught out by the difference between suspending a session and logging off when using a voucher and lost a couple of quid!

Brian - I heartily agree, 48hrs is NOT long enough. When you're a real beginner as I was when I first used the site, I wasted a lot of money. Once bitten as they say, I've now got new names that i'm itching to look for but will wait till i've got enough to use the whole fiver! I think there is a posting somewhere on here from someone who said use the limit option, use what you want and log off. Sue

You set an upper limit for the credit card transaction. Never choose the minimum of £5.00, choose something higher. Otherwise you will find that you had six pages at 75p each and spent £4.50. There is not enough left for another page. You can set the upper limit at £20 or whatever you want. After the seven searches you will be able to close the session and be charged £5.25 (hope my arithmetic is right!). Martin

I have been told today that if I buy a voucher I can view in my own time and not have the limited 48 hours is this right Sue.........what is the limit option Susan mentioned also how do I cheat, I can't find that one that Tracy had put forward.

Susan If you use a voucher they last for 6 months which is ideal. And you can download a census decoder which allows you to group households together with the numbers, you can type in census decoder in google and you should find it, Perhaps someone else could explain it a bit better. Debbie If you look back to the bottom of the tips board there is a message called 1901 census by pearl Harries that explains some more read the answers. hope this helps.

It's midnight again and I am still looking,I have downloaded the Decoder Deb and I find it a great help, the only thing is I saved the information I got last night in excel and I don't know where it's gone I can't find it, still a learner on the computer Sue....

It has probably saved it in the same folder as the decoder. Try opening the program again. Do a couple of searches and then save the results. But before you click to save, check where it is putting the file. There is a chance that the other file might be there. If not you will have to search you whole PC for XLS files. Martin

I must admit I was caught out several times by only buying £5 worth of look-ups and then spending £4.50 and losing the other 50p. Also I found it infuriating that the page kept timing out so I kept having to resubmit my details, even when I was still in credit, and only an hour or so since my last look-up. The whole experience has made me avoid the 1901 census site like the plague. Surely in this day and age there must be a better way of doing it but I could never figure out what. Liz, Staffs.

Thanks Martin and Susan - I think I might go for the voucher option for starters at least it gives you pleanty of time. I keep reading messages re the de-coder, but I dont know if i'm brave enough to download, i'm a computor beginner too - and SEE the other Susan's lost her's - I'm bound to do the same!! Sue.