Census & Electoral Rolls
Zoom In Zoom Out

Census & Electoral Rolls

Many countries took periodic censuses to keep track of various aspects of the population. Ancestry.co.uk has indexes and images of UK censuses for England, Scotland, Wales, Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, for every decade from 1841 through 1901. These records include helpful details about your ancestors and their families and allow you to pinpoint their location at a particular point in time.
While the questions in census records vary from place to place, and year to year, you can find information like names of other household members, gender, age, marital status, birthplace, occupation, and even additional information about the dwelling and property.
President William Howard Taft, Hanover, Pennsylvania, USA, 1909

Hide AdvancedShow AdvancedClear FormSearch

Name

Use default settings
About these settings
Use default settings
About these settings

Birth

e.g. 1913
+/-
e.g. Reading, England, United Kingdom
Use default settings
About these settings

Lived In (Residence)

e.g. Reading, England, United Kingdom
Use default settings
About these settings

Family Members

e.g. Emma Jones, Sarah Smith
e.g. Edward, Anne, William

More

e.g. teacher or "Tower of London"

Collection Priority

 
Show only records from these collections
Only records from the UK and Ireland

More Info

For UK census reocrds, the first place to look is the 1901 census, which is the most recent collection available on Ancestry.co.uk. Censuses then go back every 10 years - 1891, 1881, 1871, 1861 and 1851 - until 1841, which was the first to ask for personal information. These census records can tell you where your ancestor lived, their name, gender, age on the date of the census, occupation and birthplace (in 1841 it is just shown as within the county or outside). They will also show who they were living or staying with on the night of the census.


From 1851 the person's relationship to the head of the household and marital status is shown as well as whether they have a disability.


From 1891 the person's employment status is shown. This shows whether they were employed, an employer or neither - and from 1901, 'home worker' was added as a category.

Search Tips

  • The census was to record everyone who slept in the house on census night, including travelers.
  • Pinpoint your ancestor's location from the census on a map, and then look for churches, cemeteries, and other places where your ancestor may have left records.
  • Be sure to locate your ancestor's adult siblings in census records. It was common for extended family to live in the same household or near other family members. You may find a parent, grandparent, or other family members living either with them or nearby.
  • If you're having a difficult time locating your ancestor, try searching using only given names and other details like birth year, residence, family members, place of birth, etc.
  • Occasionally, census takers only recorded initials in place of the given name. Using only a first initial will bring up these records.
  • Census takers didn't always have the best penmanship, so if you're having a hard time locating your ancestor, write out the name and try replacing some of the letters with letters that look similar.
  • In 1851, ships in port or in British waters were treated like institutions and enumerated separately. Crews of ships at sea or in foreign ports were not counted in 1841 and 1851. Starting in 1861, special shipping schedules were used to account for all British vessels anywhere at sea.
Ancestry.co.uk