Census online - A new link to our ancestors

A WONDERFUL facility that will allow us rediscover our ancestors, or at least paint a fuller picture of them, went online yesterday.

In a move that represents exemplary public service the National Archives put 4.5 million individual returns, from 850,000 households across the 32 counties on the night of Sunday, March 31, 1901, free on the internet.

This follows the tremendous success of an earlier project which put the 1911 census online. This attracted 260 million hits in the last few years, the majority from the descendants of Irish immigrants.

We are lucky to have these as so many records were destroyed during the Civil War. Others were lost, in what now seems mindless vandalism, when they were pulped to make paper during World War II.

Anything that improves our understanding of our shared past is welcome. This project will.