Passing this along -- Quietly and without fanfare, the public records office is letting web users access the 1901 census. Not since January have users been able to trawl through the 32m names on the register. The site received 50m inquiries and at its peak was handling 1m inquiries an hour. Only 1.2m a day were expected. It seized up under the pressure and was pulled by the public records office within 24 hours. An attempt to resurrect the site only served to highlight again how woefully the government had underestimated the public's appetite for a peek at the records of their ancestors. The new site at www.pro.gov.uk can only be viewed at certain times (9am to 11pm, Monday to Saturday) and has been stripped of some facilities. Almost apologetically, it asks users to be patient when faced with long waiting times and to give feedback whenever they hit a glitch. The site will, however, be a one-off. Note - I had more luck with the general search engine than the advanced.