Genealogists around the world will likely keep an eye on the massive new census project announced this week by the National Archives of the United Kingdom. It’s teaming with internet genealogy site ScotlandOnline (home to ScotlandsPeople) to bring the 1911 England and Wales census to the web.

The digitization partnership will involve the creation of 18 million images containing the names of approximately 35 million people then living in England and Wales. The records are presently taking up 1.24 miles of shelf space at the National Archives. Once the records are digital, that will take up ½ a petabyte of computer memory or, physically, 800 data tapes.

The information will begin to be released online in 2009, with all images ready by January 3, 2012. Researchers accessing the cenuss information will be able to search across the fields of the census by name, address or the National Archives reference, and download high-resolution digital images.

The National Archives has other big projects in the works, with a goal of digitizing 100 million pages by 2012. These include the Domesday Book (now available digitally at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday), census records, prisoner of war records, ancient petitions, war service and medal records.