Chris Paton's Scottish GENES
Just read query on Twitter, someone wishing you could see household index before paying for a #1921census entry for #Scotland. This is why I kicked up with ScotlandsPeople last week, when they initially removed census source references! Whilst you can't see household index, you can reconstruct it using source refs. Search for surname in district, then re-order results by Ref (click on blue Ref header). Those sharing surname in same household should have same ref & be clumped together. #genealogy
Dec 1, 2022 at 9:33amWeb
Show threadFergus SmithDec 1, 2022

@ScottishGENES I'm not sure they removed the census source references. More likely they didn't understand the importance of them to researchers, something they would have done had they bothered to speak to users.

No need to ascribe to malice what can better be explained by incompetence ...

Show threadChris Paton's Scottish GENESDec 1, 2022
@oldscotbooks No malice was ascribed. The references were not visible to users, and were thus removed - for whatever reason. They reinstated them in two phases - initially without the page number, and then with the page number, once the significance was pointed out to them.
Show threadFergus SmithDec 1, 2022
@ScottishGENES Yeah sorry my glib snark led to a lack of clarity - I meant I don't think it was necessarily deliberate to hide the references, rather the people designing/building the UI didn't understand their significance.
Show threadChris Paton's Scottish GENESDec 1, 2022
@oldscotbooks They clearly didn't - but thankfully they listened!
Show threadRobertJacksonDec 1, 2022

@ScottishGENES

Let's face it, in so many ways pay per view is a bit of a swizz. I did barely a couple of ppv searches of the FMP 1921& only for people I really really wanted to see & waited until, eventually, it could be subscribed. Sooner than I expected actually 😊

Show threadChris Paton's Scottish GENESDec 1, 2022
@RobertJackson58585858 Swings & roundabouts really! It's pricey per image, but then so was the initial access to the English and Welsh returns, which was more expensive, albeit with some additional documents - even now, months on, you have to pay for a hefty add on subscription to a sub for unlimited access. But ScotlandsPeople also offers records, such as Scottish BMDs, at a MUCH cheaper rate than the English and Welsh equivalents - £1.50 for a Scottish record, versus £7 for a PDF down south.