England and Wales, Census, 1921: Inaccessible records
I have received two record hints for this collection. Both of the records return a We're unable to show this record. This record can only be displayed on certain accounts. FamilySearch must honor the agreements we have with our partners, record owners, and internal policies message.
They are for these profiles: John William Westerman KH6T-C64 and Frederick Smith GPX7-ZM8.
This collection originated from Find My Past and is apparently new; it wasn't included in the New Free Historical Records from 27 Countries | May 2026 Update and its header page does not include a How to Use This Collection button.
@SerraNola, why are these records inaccessible? There are only a few records in collection that are available. I did a simple search for last names "S*"; that returned a grand total of 37 results!
Thank you.
Answers
-
I found a London birth registration on GRO (and FreeBMD and FMP) yesterday that is completely unfindable on FS. Relative b.1913. Can provide the pid privately if wanted but would rather not post it. I cut and pasted the index information from the GRO search results into a Note on the profile to remind myself to come back once the information returns to view.
Edit: whoops just twigged this is a 1921 census thread. I'd clearly had insufficient coffee…
0 -
@SerraNola - this triggers a memory of a conversation that I had with another FS researcher about the 1921 England & Wales census. During that conversation, I searched for my GGF and found this:
"If I use FMP to search for George (plus variants) Bruce (exact), born Scotland, FMP has 23 (in England & Wales).
"If I use FS to search for George (not exact) Bruce (exact), born Scotland (not exact), FS has 4 (in England & Wales)."
Today I repeated the FS search and found no-one.
The citation for the FS 1921 is dated 12 May (when I just looked) whereas the conversation was a couple of days before that - so maybe the index etc etc has been replaced since the conversation, explaining the difference over time. So, in a sense that doesn't worry me.
What does worry me is that FS appears to be shooting itself in the foot over this 1921. I don't have any problem with FS confining access to the 1921 to certain accounts - I don't know what the commercial agreements are behind the scenes and don't need to know what FS did to gain some access, however restricted.
What I find odd is that the search page is there but there is no clue of the restrictions. I just get zero results (and the patronising "Sometimes less is more" message). Why does FS provide a search screen that presumably gives zero answers for many people but zero explanation why? Why not a one line explanation? Or is it all an error? I can't tell.
As it is, FS gives the impression of not being committed to this collection. If they are trying to save time, they're not saving the time of the mods or that of the other community participants who are trying to explain FS's own actions on their behalf.
2 -
The index to the England and Wales, Census, 1921 was provided by FindMyPast. That generally means it was imported from FMP, and we've had a few discussions regarding mapping errors with imported indexes.
I mentioned an issue with this collection a few days ago
2 -
Please see the thread at
2 -
Please see my post at this thread:
1 -
Update on the hints that I originally reported. As of today:
- John William Westerman. The hint has vanished completely.
- Frederick Smith. He still appears in my list of hints (website) and tasks (Android Family Tree app), but when I open his profile in either scenario, there are no hints.
0
