What search features are available?

There are several ways to search and refine your results on the censusrecords.com site. We have tried to provide you with as many tools as possible to help you find your ancestor or the person in history you are looking for.

Variants:

When you search on a name, you can check the box next to the first name or last name field which will pull up variants of the name you searched on. These are basically alternate spellings or names that sound similar. 

Wild cards:

Sometimes the spelling of a names and places change over the years, or names and locations are transcribed incorrectly in the data set you are searching. You might not know how your ancestor or relative spells their name or the name of their parish or township, or you might only know their initial.

To help with these issues, we allow you to use the following wild-card characters in your search:

? = single character wild-card
* = unknown text string

This is what you will get in your search results:

• Searching for "Re?d" would give results for "Reed", "Read", "Reid"
• Searching for "T*y" would give results for "Tommy", "Tammy","Timmy", "Toby"

"Other Search Options" - Advanced search:

Other Search Options sends you to a page where you can further refine your results by entering additional information.

Add Household Member:

This option allows you to add in the first and last name of a household member which will narrow your search by returning only results that have the original person you are searching for and the added household member as members of the same household. You can also check the box to include variants of the household member's name.

Faceted search:

After your initial search, you will see facets in the left hand bar that allow you to narrow your search further. Clicking the "+" sign expands out all the all of the options under that facet. e.g. if you expand the census year facet, you will be presented with a complete list of available censuses sorted by year.

The following facets are available:

• State
• Census Year
• County
• City/Township
• Gender
• Race

Sorting:

You can sort search results by clicking on the column heading (excluding the age column).

We hope this improves your search experience and the quality of your results.