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.