Having been frustrated many times trying to find relatives in the 1901 Irish Census on the microfilm copies in the Public Record Office in Belfast I wrote to Peter Hain, Secretary (meaning senior minister) for Northern Ireland suggesting that there should be a government effort to computerise (and therefore index by name) the 1901 Census. My arguments were: a.. that the England and Wales censuses and the Scottish census had been put online so why not the Irish b.. that this would make up to some extent for the wanton destruction the 19th century Irish censuses in WW1 (allegedly for the pulp paper, but then why didn't they destroy the much large English census) c.. that since the exercise had already been done for the rest of Britain the costs were predictable and the software already in place d.. that there was a ready audience for this around the world, especially in America, and that it could be self-funding with the sort of reasonable charges of the English online Census e.. that since the Census belongs to Ireland now it would be a good cross border project I expected the brush off, which I already had from PRONI but instead got the reply that the National Archive of Ireland is collaborating with the Archives of Canada to index and digitise the 1901 and 1911 Irish Censuses. This is good news indeed. The disappointing part is that the timescale is "two to three" years, which may be government speak for "sometime". There is also a policy update by the General Register Office of Northern Ireland to digitise BMDs, not just the indexes (which can be consulted in Belfast but the digitisation of pre 1922 BMDs is half hearted) but the BMD base data. I have written back to propose again that the English National Archive should help out with their obvious expertise (and some funding), which could speed up the dates and partially atone for the original crime. At this stage I would just ask you to broadcast the news around the net and to ancestor seekers you know to keep this in the public eye and make sure it is not quietly forgotten. I shall take a sounding on it next year and maybe if there is little progress we could organise some email lobbying. If you do want to write now I can give you the address. David Quinn