Modern technology has given Britons a glimpse of life at the turn of the last century with the online publication of the national census for 1901.
Doomed Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott, silent movie actor Charlie Chaplin, nurse Florence Nightingale and "The Lord of the Rings" author J.R.R Tolkien are among notable citizens whose details are recorded on the census.
A spokeswoman for the Public Records Office -- which on Wednesday made the entire 1901 census for England and Wales available online at www.census.pro.gov.uk -- said the site had taken two years to complete and would be an invaluable resource for genealogists and historians.
"The database contains details of over 32 million individuals," she told BBC radio. "It is a snapshot of the family at the time -- ages, place of birth, occupations and also... who else was in the household at the time."
As well as the famous names, it also lists 90,000 "lunatics, imbeciles and feeble-minded people."
News source: Reuters