General Chat

Dear All

Hello

Apparently (according to a report in the Daily Telegraph),
we will all be asked if we have central heating, a second home and sexual orientation on the census 2011.

Do you think these questions are daft?

What questions would help our descendants know more
about our lives in 100 years time?

Take care

Best wishes
xx

I'm not very interested in the central heating personally:)

From a genealogy perspective, I wish they would ask as many personal questions as possible for future generations' use but then part of me thinks there is far too much information held on us already and not anyone else's business.

Would dearly love to know who thinks up all these questions.

X

They get them off here .

Well at least I know my descendants not yet born will be able to find out lots about me!

I just looked on the Army Rolls and know the hair colour, skin colour and eye colour of my great-grandfather, plus his chest measurement and height. I am thrilled to discover these personal details.

Hello Elizabeth ,

I hope there isn't a question about central heating or I might have to attach extra paper to the form......lol.......being in a council house we had central heating forced on us a few years ago . Out of principle we have never used it......it annoys me on a daily basis : (

I question about how many pets in the house might be interesting .

Hmm - sexual orientation. Possible answers:
90 degrees North West
Occasionally
No - I only get chinese food from the takeaway

I wish they would have a few questions about hobbies or pastimes. I would love to have known what my ancestors liked doing when they had time!

I could put drinking G*iness, eating chocolate, reading, writing completely daft poetry, messing about on GR, patchwork ....

You get some idea of what a person is like from their hobbies - don't you?

Jill

Just thinking that the sexual orientation one could be interesting. I keep hearing that "10% of the population is gay" and wonder who came up with that statistic, so maybe they are trying to find out what the true figure is?

Would be funny if everyone put gay/lesbian wouldn't it? That'd cause a bit of a stir!

Jill

Just thinking, what would happen if they did what some of my ancestors and married-ins did and just put initials? In one household, I found the head down as John Todd, then the wife as H.E. Todd, daughters down as S.J. Todd, H.E. Todd and Mary Todd. Took me ages to work out who was who!

Or, the ones who just put "Lancashire", "Ireland" etc down. And some people will have been born in Liverpool before Merseyside was invented while others will have been born afterwards - what do the pre-1974 births put down? (I think it was still Lancashire then.)

I think we've had the sexual orientation question on at least the last census over here





but of course, no-one tells the truth on censuses do they???????? :))))



Actually Canada has 2 formats whenever a census is taken, have had for most of the last 40 years at least.


There is the short form .... about 2 to 4 pages of questions to be answered by the "head of the household"


and a long form which is sent to about 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 Canadians. That one is about 10 pages, or so I believe ............ we've been lucky and not won that draw!!


But the long form asks all kinds of information on hosuehold, house, living accommodations, religion, income range, etc etc etc



Then Statistics Canada starts releasing certain types of information about 3 months after the census is taken ......... not names or anything like that. But things that might be useful to business or planners ...... such as 10% of the households in Toronto are single parent. 50% of the households in Winnipeg have a median income of more than $50,000 per annum



sylvia

Dear All

Hello

As ever, thank you very much for your replies.

This census form will be a very long one
at this rate with all the proposed questions!

Take care of yourselves

Very best wishes
xx