A census is defined as an official enumeration of the people of a nation, state, district, or city, together with the collecting of statistics concerning their property, nativity, age, sex, occupation, etc. Since 1790, the U.S. government has taken a nationwide population count every ten years. Early censuses were essentially basic counts of inhabitants; but as the nation grew, so did the need for statistics that would reflect the characteristics of the people. Succeeding enumerations solicited more information; by 1920, census enumerators asked twenty-nine questions of every head of household and almost as many questions of everyone else in the residence. Few, if any records reveal as many details about individuals and families as do the U.S. censuses.

The U.S. census records will help you build your family tree. With 70 million names, the census is the best place to find basic information about your relatives. Start you search by filling in the form below. The search box below will search 2 billion names in U.S. Federal Census records, Birth, Marriage, death records and historical newspapers. The search results will be displayed on Ancestry.com’s website.