This document provides strategies for finding people in historical census records given potential errors and limitations in the records. It recommends: 1) Being flexible in name spellings and ages searched as names could be misspelled or mistranscribed and ages rounded or miscalculated. 2) Searching by other household members like spouses or children if the main name is unclear. 3) Considering places may be recorded at different levels of precision between censuses. 4) Using multiple census indexes that allow searching additional attributes to narrow searches.

1. I CAN’T FIND MY PERSON
IN THE CENSUS

2. LESS IS MORE
• Avoid using gender
• The less you enter the more
results
• Only one wrong box filled in
will invalidate your search

3. Mistakes in the name
• Mispelled by enumerator
• Mistranscribed by the indexer
• Going by a nickname or middle
name

4. Search Strategies
• Search by a known spouse or child
Try one of the younger children
• Search the last name with similar first names
(Kate/Katherine or Robert/Roland)
• Search for a middle name.
• Search for a nickname
• Search spelling variations
• Search first name only to see transcribing errors
T and L, L and S, I and J, R and B, H and A

5. Mistakes in years
• Always allow a margin of 2 years or more
for the age.
• Problem of calculating age.
• 1841 British Census ages for adults rounded
to nearest 5

6. Mistakes in place
• Variations from one census to another.
Perhaps a different degree of precision
a town vs a village, a parish vs a hamlet
• When a child leaves home, the first census
is often incorrect, often the town where they
grew up is given by mistake.

7. Narrowing your search
• Use more than one index.
• At Familysearch.org, you can specify two
members of the household
• At Ancestry.com, you can search the given
name of the spouse and parents
• At Findmypast.com, you can search for any
two people in the household
You can search by occupation and by
address

8. 1880 Census – parents birthplace
• US Census after 1880, you can specify the
birthplace of the parents.

9. Look at the neighbors
• Many will be related
• Ethnic clues will give you some social
history

10. Look at the neighbors
• Many will be related
• Ethnic clues will give you some social
history