1861 Census Online >> 1861 Radnorshire Census

Censuses on Ancestry.com
– Anastasia Sutherland Tyler

My father spent twenty years tracking one family line across the United States. You know the story: Twenty years of backtracking them from California to Montana to Missouri to Texas to.... Twenty years of traveling to libraries and spinning microfilmed census enumerations through a reader! Twenty years of not knowing or working with others on the same lines. Last week I found a different family in the 1930 U.S. census online and tracked them all the way back to the 1880 census, the census right before they emigrated from Germany.

Many Internet sites allow us to search for our family's census records from the comfort of our home or office. With online indexes, we can insert information about an individual and the computer searches for our ancestors in obscure places and with strange name spellings. The most complete online census collection resides at Ancestry.com. This collection offers indexes for U.S. censuses and UK censuses, the ability to correct name misspellings, and a chance to connect with others researching the same individuals.

Below is a look at the census offerings on Ancestry.com and how you'll find in these offerings much more than names and images.

U.S. Censuses from 1790 to 1930
Ancestry.com has recently completed and posted the every-name index for the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. With this addition, the U.S. census collection now houses images and indexes for 240 years of censuses.

As their name suggests, every-name indexes include the name of every individual listed in a census, rather than only the name of the head of household. Every-name indexes are easier to search because you can search for children, whose names you probably know, and then discover their parents, whose names you may not know.

The U.S. censuses from 1790 through 1840 list only the names of heads of households. In 1850, censuses began including the names of every individual residing in the household. The following chart shows who was listed in each census and what type of index Ancestry.com currently has (but be on the lookout for continued upgrades to the census indexes):

Census Year People Enumerated Index Type
1790 Head of Household Head of Household
1800 Head of Household Head of Household
1810 Head of Household Head of Household
1820 Head of Household Head of Household
1830 Head of Household Head of Household
1840 Head of Household Head of Household
1850 Every Person at Residence Every Name
1860 Every Person at Residence Every Name
1870 Every Person at Residence Every Name
1880 Every Person at Residence Every Name
1890* Every Person at Residence Every Name
1900 Every Person at Residence Every Name
1910 Every Person at Residence Head of Household
1920 Every Person at Residence Head of Household
1930 Every Person at Residence Every Name
* Only fragment of the 1890 census remains, as the majority was destroyed.

Five Decades of UK Censuses and Counting
For those lines that go into England, you'll find help from the recently launched every-name indexes for the 1861, 1871, and 1901 England and Wales censuses. The UK census collection now has every-name indexes for each England and Wales census from 1861 to 1901—that's five decades of census indexes and images.

Indexed information varies by census year, but often includes first names, surname, residence (town, parish, and county), birth location, family relations within the household, and age at census. These indexed items are searchable and linked to images of the census pages. For the 1881 census, you can use the new search-by-address feature, which can help you determine who lived in your ancestors' home in 1881, find neighboring families that may have had a connection to your ancestor, or discover unknown relatives that may have lived in a house passed down through generations.

Every-name indexes and images for the 1851 and 1841 census are in this collection's future. The 1841 census is the first UK census that provides information valuable to family historians (such information could include first and last names, estimated birth years, residence, and so on), and the 1901 census is the most recent available from the British government. Thus Ancestry.com will have indexes and images for the seven decades of census available and helpful to family historians.

UK census search tip: If UK records are part of your Ancestry.com subscription, you can log on to Ancestry.co.uk and search UK census records there. This site limits your searches to only the UK.

Correct and Connect
When my father searched in the library, he was limited to the microfilms and the staff. While library staff members are very knowledgeable about family history and certain regions or topics, my father never found help with the intricacies of the specific lines he was researching. Today you have the ability to, in essence, alter the errors in census listing and to connect with other researchers who are researching the same individuals—all online.

All census entries on Ancestry.com (and most other databases not associated with the censuses) offer you the chance add alternate names, report image problems, or make a comment about a record or individual. Look for a “Comments and Corrections” link as you search through various records. This link is your gateway to correcting errors and connecting with other researchers.

Alternate Names: No index is perfect. Errors creep in through misspellings in original documents and the indexing process. The alternate names function allows you to correct a misspelled name, add a woman's maiden name, or even add nicknames. The alternate name becomes immediately viewable for other members who visit the comments and corrections link for that record and will become searchable the next time the database is updated. This means that you or anyone else can search for the record using the alternate name you submitted. In the future, you'll be able to add alternate information on locations, dates, and more.

Comments: You can add comments that help you connect and communicate with other researchers. A submitted comment becomes a message board associated only with that record. Other researchers who view the record (and click on Comments and Corrections) can read and respond to your comment. You can post questions, data corrections, hints to other records, and so on. The possibilities of what you can do with this feature are limitless.

Image Errors: If you run into an error with an image (an image won't load, the shown image is incorrect, etc.), you can report the error to our online quality assurance team. This team will review the error and make corrections as needed. A message will be sent to you when the error is fixed. Image error reporting is only available on records with images associated with them—i.e., censuses, passenger lists, etc.

For more on adding comments and corrections, see Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak's article “Virtual Post-Its.”

Summing Up
The census collection on Ancestry.com goes way beyond finding names. You're given the ability to trace your ancestors across the United States and your British immigrants into England. You can correct errors and connect with other family historians in a new and exciting way. Thus the census enumerations can be, for you, more than just names, dates, and a few interesting facts. The census records can be your doorway to connecting with relatives you've known and enriching your family history with the help of countless others.