07 August 2013

1921 Census of Canada Count-up: Day 67

On Wednesday afternoon the word finally came, officially, from Library and Archives Canada that the 1921 Census, Thursday 8 August at around 2 pm, eastern time. It will be available, with the geographic index, free of charge on Ancestry’s platform at www.ancestry.ca/census
I'm told there will be a geographic index only but that Ancestry is working on a name index to be available to their subscribers this fall, and made freely through LAC after three years. That's the same arrangement under which Ancestry indexed the previous Canadian censuses.
When it become available you'll want to search those images for which you know the geographic location of those you seek. With any luck, and given the large number of servers Ancestry has at its disposal, there should be no service outages as would likely occur if LAC was inundated with users.
When you've concluded your searches you might want to reflect on the process we've been through.

  • Why did it take 67 days for images that were already in electronic form and well geographically indexed before they ever got to LAC to be placed online?
  • How was Ancestry selected as LACs partner? 
  • Is the arrangement exclusive or can other organizations obtain the images and produce their own indexes?
  • With the images available since the beginning of June on microfilm why were they not made available promptly on-site at 395 Wellington?
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2 comments:

  1. Lgauvreau08 August, 2013 11:03

    J'aimerais avoir des réponses aux questions que vous posez:

    - How was Ancestry selected as LACs partner?

    - Is the arrangement exclusive or can other organizations obtain the images and produce their own indexes?

    Merci,

    Luc Gauvreau (Montréal)

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  2. M.C. Moran10 August, 2013 00:11

    I too would like to have some answers to the questions flagged by Luc Gauvreau.

    Could the folks at Automated Genealogy (who have done a wonderful job with the 1901 and 1911 Canadian census returns) obtain the images and produce their own indices in less than three years? Or would this violate the LAC's partnership arrangement with Ancestry?

    ReplyDelete