Quintin Jardine's blog

I must now go and fill in my census form. Many people wonder why we do it in such detail. As my friend Lord Foulkes suggested many many years ago, when a Lothian Region official admitted that he didn’t know how many people his department employed, why don’t we just line them up and count them?

Attractive as that idea may be, the census is a useful tool. I’ve learned quite a lot about a great-grandfather, and my paternal grandfather from the 1891 and 1901 censuses, which are now available for search on line. 1911 will be released next week, and I’ll be checking that too. I’ll find my dad on that one, but I’ll need to hang around until 2021 for my mother to make an appearance.