NRS 'confident' 1921 Scottish census will be released this year

On Monday I asked, via this blog, the question that most of us want an answer to - when will the National Records of Scotland release the 1921 Scottish census? (http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2022/08/when-will-national-records-of-scotland.html).

I followed this on Twitter yesterday with the following comment addressed to the NRS directly: 

"Hi @NatRecordsScot. The public had a right to see Scotland's 1921 census last year, but the ongoing delay in making it available in any form is blocking access, not facilitating it. Can you please provide update to your user base? Do you have a release date, even a month? Thanks."

Brace yourself, because this morning the NRS has given a response, via its ScotlandsPeople Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/ScotlandsPeople):

Work is well advanced for the release of the 1921 census records later this year.

We are confident we will publish the census before the end of the year but it is a large and complex project and we can’t yet give a specific date.

We know customers are eagerly waiting this exciting release and we will provide a date as soon as we can.

As mentioned, they have given a response - but there is virtually nothing new in this, it is seemingly just a holding statement with a variation of "the latter half of 2022" announcement previously issued. If there is anything new to be gleaned from it at all, it is the potential 'but' caveat at the end - "but it is a large and complex project...".

It will either be released this year - or it won't. I suspect we won't know until it actually happens. 

Further update (12.50pm):

ScotlandsPeople has finally released something a bit more tangible by way of a progress report, via its email newsletter:

Preparations for the publication of the 1921 Scottish Census on the ScotlandsPeople website and in the ScotlandsPeople Centre towards the end of this year are well under way. In January, work began on the transcription of the index to publish the records and digital images on ScotlandsPeople. Once this is complete, a full transcription of the remaining information from approximately 4.8 million individual records will be created.

This is a large scale and complex project that involves the transcription of individual records followed by extensive quality assurance. To date we have transcribed over 3 million index entries and continue to work on the quality assurance of these while progressing with the technical preparations on the ScotlandsPeople website. As we continue to proceed with this project, we will announce its publication as far in advance as possible via our digital channels.

We appreciate how patient people have been waiting for this important release. This is a key priority for NRS and considerable resources are being devoted to ensure these records are released to the public as soon as possible.

I am assuming that this means that they are just over 60% of the way through on the indexing front.

(With thanks to ScotlandsPeople)

Chris

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.