Tips for researching with census records.

Note: This blog post was originally written several year ago. Due to switching website providers, I am updating and reposting all of my blog posts.

Every time there is a census in Australia, it reminds me about the importance of census records in family history. Whenever I read modern census questions, I admit I do feel a little envious of the future researchers and/or descendants who will see these records when they are released in 99 years time - I wish censuses from 100 or 200 years ago had the same amount of rich detail that modern censuses contain! Here are two tips for using census records effectively in your family research:

1. If your ancestor did not leave behind many records, the census can be a wonderful way to pin down their birth date or marriage. Since they were giving the information themselves, the records can be a little more reliable than, say, a death record that contains information given by a relative who may not know the correct particulars of the deceased's life. However, I've learnt to take the birth years and ages in a census with a grain of salt - they are not always reliable and should be used as an estimation only to verify with other records when possible. 

2. If your ancestor immigrated to another country, census records can help you estimate their date of departure. For example, if your ancestor is present on the 1851 census, but not on the 1861 or 1871 census, you can usually conclude that they immigrated during this time.*

*always check more than one census - sometimes an ancestor may not be listed on one census, but is on the next.

A census success story:

I knew next to nothing about one of my second great grandfathers. He had an absurdly common name and all the information I had was that he was born somewhere in the British Isles, held the rank of captain in the Salvation Army and had lived in Western Australia during the early 1900s. His death record held very little information and his birth record had not been found.

By chance, I came across a newspaper advertisement in the 1920s about a probate for his mother Emma. Now knowing that he had other family members in Australia, I checked her death record and found her birthplace, parents and year of birth. By checking the 1881 census records for her birthplace, I found that my second great grandfather had been born that year and that he had two siblings. The family did not appear on the 1891 census or any other British censuses, but showed up on the 1903 Australian Electoral Roll records, so I can conclude that they immigrated to Australia sometime between 1881-1903. Through the census, I was also able to find my second great grandfather's birth record. If it were not for checking census records, I likely would not have been able to find out all of this rich information.

I hope this blog post has helped and got you thinking about researching with census records.

Best wishes,

Liliana