England Census Records -- Finding and Using Indexes

There are several different websites that provide access to indexed images of the censuses. The 1841 and subsequent censuses are all indexed and can be searched online by name, age, birthplace, or locality. The indexes can be problematic in that names can be spelled in various ways and indexers sometimes failed to interpret the spellings correctly. If you cannot find a person it means you need to vary your search parameters. The information in an index may be incorrect or incomplete. If you believe your ancestor was in a particular census area, search the census even if your ancestor is not in the index.