Just as taxes are often collected for reasons other than paying for government services, censuses are performed for reasons other than a head count. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS Church) defines a census on their FamilySearch Web site [http://www.familysearch.org] as "An official count of the population taken by a government or church." 

Censuses come in two kinds: head counts with little or no personal information, and a nominal census, i.e., a census with names or an enumeration which identifies each individual counted by name, as a minimum, and other personal information. (For a concise history of the census, see Infoplease.com [http://www.infoplease.com].) 

Most nominal censuses collect personal information, sometimes in great detail, and in exchange for a guarantee of privacy until several decades have elapsed. These historical, nominal census schedules with personal information are among the most important research sources for family historians (genealogists) and, since the late 1970s and the rise of personal computers, historical demographers. 

Closely related to census schedules and also prized by genealogists, parish (ecclesiastical) registers contain names and dates associated with Christian religious rituals such as baptism (and sometimes birth information), marriage, burial (and death information). Some parish registers also record the movement of individuals into and out of a parish. In Europe, these records are generally considered part of the historical demographic record for reconstructing population counts. In North America, because governments normally sponsor censuses, the same class of records are regarded as vital statistics documents. While we will mention a few examples here, a future Searcher article will cover online parish registers, vital statistics and related databases for genealogical research. Many of the sites operated by genealogical societies or individual family historians contain additional links that readers should click and explore. No one article can do justice to the wealth of current and historic census and demographic data available on the Web or through commercial data services and data libraries. 

Part I of this article looks at the census tradition within the U.K., the Scandinavian countries, and selected European nations where governments, genealogists, social science researchers, and the LDS Church have begun, over the past 20 to 30 years, cooperative projects to extract valuable data from these records. (Part II will focus on the history of the Canadian census.) We will discuss some of the software and standards developed by research communities, in particular historical demographers, as well as some of the copyright and privacy issues surrounding census data. However, we will only mention some of the various ethnic and religious groups that develop and maintain their own genealogical Web sites for members. Nor will we cover the many CD-ROM databases of census transcriptions. The majority of these CD-ROMs cover the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. 

General Guides to the Census and Population Statistics
Census statistics and demographic (population) resources are abundant and easy to find on the Web. Besides well-known directories such as Google Directory [http://directory.google.com/] and Yahoo!, several specialized guides cover online census records. Google's directory contains entries under Science > Math > Statistics and Science > Social Sciences > Demography and Population Studies. Web sites specific to a country may also appear in an equivalent Regional category. The Google Directory entry for family history is under Society > Genealogy. 

General Population / Statistics Guides 
Statistics.com [http://www.statistics.com/] bills itself as a Yahoo!-like directory for research statistics and statistical analysis. The site includes software, courses, and a site search engine. A comparable academic site is StatLib [http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/], managed by the Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University. 

The U.S. Census Bureau maintains a reference page to various world population data [http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/world.html] and an International Data Base (IDB) with demographic data for 227 countries and regions [http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbnew.html] from 1950 to the present, as well as projected data up to 2050. A free, downloadable copy of the IDB, updated to May 10, 2000, is available for the Intel PC platform. The U.S. Census Bureau also tends a list of national Statistical Agencies (International) [http://www.census.gov/main/www/stat_int.html]. 

Political jurisdictions within many countries also maintain government statistical agencies that rely upon and interpret national census data. In my province, for example, this function is performed by BCStats [http://www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/]. The Norwegian central statistics office (Statistisk sentralbyrå) tracks Web Servers at Statistical Agencies [http://www.ssb.no/english/links/main.shtml]. 

Still going strong after 8 years, the World Wide Web Virtual Library: Demography & Population Studies: The Internet Guide to Demography and Population Studies [http://demography.anu.edu.au/VirtualLibrary/] is one of the oldest categories in the WWWVL collection. One of the topic lists is Census and Data Servers. Its counterpart, the World Wide Web Virtual Library: Statistics [http://www.stat.ufl.edu/vlib/statistics.html], is managed by the University of Florida Department of Statistics. 

General Genealogical Guides 
The About.com site-search engine [http://www.about.com] offers a good way to start looking for online census records. Its main drawback, as experienced searchers know, is that the various subject guides duplicate one another's work. In a March 31, 2002, search, the keyword-based site-search engine produced nearly 1,600 hits for the word "census." Limiting the search to only the About Genealogy guide from Kimberly Powell produced about 300 hits. About Genealogy references heavily emphasize U.S. and U.K. resources, barely touching on the wealth of online census data on the international Web. A short list of information about international census records in the About Genealogy guide appears at http://genealogy.about.com/cs/census/ with links to online census records at http://genealogy.about.com/cs/censusonline/. 

If imitation and linking are criteria for success, then Ancestry.com [http://www.ancestry.com] clearly prevails. So many commercial and personal Web sites look like and link to Ancestry.com that inexperienced searchers may believe they have arrived at Ancestry.com or that Ancestry.com contains all they need. An integrated search interface to its databases covers more than 1.3 billion names, and one can limit a search by name to just census records. The drawback to Ancestry.com is that its databases only cover the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. The special section devoted to U.K. resources contains general descriptions of various census records and background information on the geographic locations of records in the Ancestry.com databases. 

The most famous and well-used (over 27 million visitors since 1996) personal links directory is Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet [http://www.cyndislist.com/]. Compiled and maintained by Cyndi Howell, Cyndi's List is hosted by RootsWeb. I visited the site twice at a 1-month interval to see whether she was still adding the same number of links she claims to average each month. On February 28, 2002, it held more than 123,550 links, with 115,300 of those organized into more than 150 categories. On March 31, it had grown to over 126,850 links with 118,550 in the same number of categories. That's 3,300 "new" links or 110 links per day, assuming the 30-day period stated in her FAQ. This is a full-time job, as she says, because she also updates and deletes another 1,000 or so each month, as well as wading through a couple hundred e-mail messages each day. Even more impressive, the site appears to be 100 percent unadulterated HTML, with no CGI, PHP, Java, or JavaScript. 

Cyndi's List has three site search engines: FreeFind, Atomz, and Google. And here we see the drawback and why there are so many links. A FreeFind search for "Scots Origins" got me 26 results, Atomz yielded 94 matches, and Google split the difference with 43 hits. Cyndi uses the same set of links on multiple pages, apparently counting each of those as a new link. In the census category, for example, there is one main link to Scots Origins and seven sublinks. Some of the same set of links appear in the Google search. 

Cyndi's List has a Census Related Sites Worldwide category, with 142 sites on February 26, 2002, and 144 sites on March 22, the last two times it was updated prior to my visits. This category divides into two sections: Census Tools & Information, with some commercial products included, and International Census Indexes & Records, i.e., lists or databases compiled by genealogists or produced by government agencies, such as the Public Record Office of England. Unfortunately, while the list appears to be in date order, it is actually in numeric-alpha order, with site titles beginning as a numeric value, in this case a census year, filing before the letter A. Researchers would probably find filing by date and country-census district more helpful. Despite its repetitive nature, however, Cyndi's List remains one of the most helpful starting points for census research. 

The GenNetwork [http://www.gennetwork.org/] directory lists independent genealogy and historical Web sites from around the world. RootsWeb [http://www.rootsweb.com] is a volunteer-driven genealogical site supported by Ancestry.com. Several family history databases and search engines help hunt down census lists compiled by genealogists. The WorldGenWeb Project [http://www.worldgenweb.org], hosted by RootsWeb, includes a non-searchable Online Digital Archive [http://www.worldgenweb.org/archives/] with transcriptions of public domain records, including censuses. Browse the archive by country to download files stored as ASCII text and sometimes digital facsimiles. 

Guides to Historic / Census Databases 
Cyndi's List of Databases — Searchable Online [http://www.cyndislist.com/database.htm] includes a subsection on historic census databases. Although this page does not include some of the census databases listed in the main census category of her site, it does point users to the other section of her site ("Census Related Sites Worldwide"). 

Tim Doyle maintains the Online Genealogical Database Index [http://www.gentree.com/gentree.html], which he claims "links to all known genealogical databases searchable through the Web." Access is by the letter of the alphabet which begins the database name. With no search engine, you can spend some time guessing the name of a specific database. Even though he states the index "does NOT include links to sites devoted to a family unless a database is available for searching," most of the index pages I checked contained databases devoted to a specific surname or a family. 

The Census Online Finder(Free online census records directory) [http://www.imagin.net/~tracers/census1.htm] includes U.K. (Ireland and Scotland) links. CensusLinks [http://censuslinks.com/] is a portal site with a geographic directory to online census databases, as well as research guides and tools for using various census records. Historical Microdata Around the World  [http://www.rhd.uit.no/nhdc/micro.html] is a Norwegian guide to online census and demographic data. GenSource [http://www.gensource.com/census/] maintains a guide to international census sources. 
 

Metasearch Sites for Census Data
Only a few metasearch sites cover census records outside the U.S. GenealogyPortal.com [http://www.genealogyportal.com/] combines a topic directory and search engine, including one to census records. 

GenSource or GENealogy ReSOURCEs [http://www.gensource.com/] contains I Found It, a family history Web directory and search engine, and the IFI Archives. Site owners Deb Kinneer and the GenSource Group describe the latter as "actual historical records to assist your genealogy research. Many individuals have taken the time to transcribe records and place them on the Net for your use. I have indexed the contents of these sites.... " GenSource also contains a virtually unpopulated and geographically inaccurate Census Guide to online international census records. The U.K. Channel Islands are listed under Oceania > New Zealand, France is listed not under Europe but under Mediterranean Counties [sic], and England falls under British Isles but not United Kingdom. 

CensusDiggins.com: Free Census Online & Genealogy Records [http://www.censusdiggins.com/]. Started as a census transcription project, this site claims to have "thousands of census records in our online census transcriptions along with marriages, death records, Civil War soldier records, Civil War prison information, photos and links. Genealogy search engines books,tips, links, resources, software and more." And the site promises, "Our Genealogy Records Will Always Be FREE." The census transcriptions, which can be searched, are U.S.-centric, but the site includes links to other sites with international census data.Oddly enough, the site search engine (PicoSearch) is placed below the Ancestry.com search engine. 

For a free database service to help locate online census databases, go to FamilyTreeSearcher.com [http://www.familytreesearcher.com]. You can store up to 10 names with some mandatory and optional vital statistic information for searching multiple databases of genealogical information. 

Europe (Selected Countries) 
For those not wishing to navigate the main European Union site, the European Union in the U.S. site  [http://www.eurunion.org/infores/resguide.htm] contains an A-Z list of EU Web sites. Conducting a page search for "statistics" will locate EuroStat [http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/], the EU's main statistical office. The EuroStat site has interfaces in English, French, or German: Look for Population & Social Conditions to uncover current demographic data. 

Denmark 
Danmarks Statistik (Statistics Denmark) [http://www2.dst.dk/internet/startUK.htm] is the national statistical agency. The Danish Demographic Database (Dansk Demografisk Database) [http://ddd.sa.dk/DDD_EN.htm], a service of the Danish Data Archive [http://www.dda.dk/] within the Danish State Archives, provides free searches of Danish censuses between 1769 and 1916. While there are several fields for searching, two of the fields are required: name (at least three characters) and the county (from a pick list). Results can be sorted by name, record number, parish, or occupation. 

Finland 
Statistics Finland [http://www.stat.fi/index_en.html] offers the free Web-based StatFin-Online Service which includes population data. The Genealogical Society of Finland [Finnish: http://www.genealogia.fi/ and English: http://www.genealogia.fi/indexe.htm] maintains an excellent site with many online articles, some transcribed from public domain sources, about Finnish emigration to North America and other parts of the world. A database, the HisKi project, is transcribing pre-20th century parish registers containing christenings, marriages, burials, and moves into and out of a parish. 

France 
The Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE) [French only: [http://www.insee.fr/fr/home/home_page.asp] — the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies — comes closest to being France's national statistical agency and provides a variety of downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF files on current and historic Population statistics. An explanation of the French public statistical system appears on the INSEE site at [http://www.insee.fr/EN/stat_pub/accueil_stat.htm. The National de l'Information Statistique (CNIS) [French: http://www.cnis.fr/ and English: [http://www.cnis.fr/ind_english.htm] or National Council for Statistical Information coordinates statistical a ctivity by public sector agencies with INSEE. The most recent French census (recensement) was held in 1999. Data results can be consulted in French at http://www.recensement.insee.fr/ or in English at http://www.recensement.insee.fr/RP99/rp99/
page_accueil.paccueil?nivgeo=F&theme=ALL&typeprod=ALL&lang=EN. 

The Institut national d'études démographiques (INED) [http://www.ined.fr/] in French and English contains historic census records for France back to 1769. A special bilingual database, History of Demographic Statistics: Census, Registers and Other Demographic Forms and Other Documents [http://www-census.ined.fr/], offers "material on the 19th and 20th century censuses (contents of the forms, instructions, propaganda,...), and more generally on the history of demographic statistics." You can query this database by country, document type, and year. Documents store as scanned images and include posters encouraging the public to complete their census returns. 

Germany 
An English version of the Federal Statistical Office Germany [http://www.destatis.de/e_home.htm] offers population and other statistics in tabular and graph formats. Some of the data and services are only available through German language displays. GESIS [German: http://www.gesis.org/ and English: [http://www.gesis.org/en/index.htm], the German Social Science Infrastructure Services, maintains data archives. 

Netherlands 
Like other small European nations, the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (Statistics Netherlands) [http://www.cbs.nl/en/default.asp] provides free access to its StatLine database. The Dutch Census of 1899 [http://www.volkstelling.nl/] was published in 1904 and is available in digital facsimile form (in Dutch as OCR text and GIF images) via the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. This document is also available as a CD-ROM set, as is De Nederlandse Volkstellingen 1795-1971. 

The International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam maintains The Historical Sample of the Netherlands [http://www.iisg.nl/~hsn/index.html], which consists of "a representative sample of about 80.000 people born in the Netherlands during the period 1812-1922." Database sources include birth, marriage, and death certificates, as well as population (census) registers. According to the site, the Netherlands "is one of the few countries in the world that has kept a continuous population register starting as early as the mid-19th century" and continued this practice until at least 1920. Access to the complete database requires signing a license agreement. 

An independent research institute, the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) [http://www.nidi.nl/], provides some basic total population figures. Its Links page references over 500 census and statistical Web sites. The Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services(NIWI) [http://www.niwi.knaw.nl/us/homepag.htm] maintains data archives, including the Netherlands Historical Data Archive (NHDA) with data sets of historical demography. Some of the "deposited" data sets, once found through the online NHDA catalog, are downloadable. 

Norway 
The multilingual Statistisk sentralbyrå (Statistics Norway) [http://www.ssb.no/] contains current population tables through the online Statistical Yearbook of Norway 2001. According to the online guide How to Trace Your Ancestor in Norway [http://odin.dep.no/odinarkiv/norsk/dep/ud/1996/eng/032005-990804/index-dok000-b-f-a.html].

National censuses were taken in 1769, 1801, and every tenth year from 1815, up to and including 1875. From 1890 (1891) a population census has been taken every tenth year. All census returns from 1900 and earlier are available for inspection. They are all located in the National Archives, except for the 1875 and 1900 returns, which are kept in the regional archives. 

Additional details about the history of the Norwegian censuses, including pre-1769 censuses, occur in Michael Drake's article "Getting into the Norwegian Census" [http://www.rhd.uit.no/nhdc/michael02.html] and in the Norwegian Historical Data Centre's "Documenting the Norwegian Censuses" [http://www.rhd.uit.no/census.html]. 

The Digitalarkivet (The Digital Archives) [http://www.hist.uib.no/arkivverket/index-en.htm] is a joint project between the National Archives of Norway, the Regional State Archives of Bergen, and the University of Bergen's Department of History. This site features the national censuses of 1801, 1865, 1875, and 1900, as well as portions of censuses from the 1660s. To view a pick list of all the censuses and the search interface, select the Source categories (Kjeldetype) link at the bottom of the page. A list of all the Digital Archives online censuses appears at http://www.hist.uib.no/arkivverket/teljing.htm. A Norwegian language summary of historical censuses, Folketeljingar i Noreg (Censuses in Norway), is available through the Useful links section of The Digital Archives. 

The Norwegian Historical Data Centre [http://www.rhd.uit.no/indexeng.html], based at the University of Tromsø, is a national research and production facility that creates databases of the Norwegian national censuses from 1865 forward. Census data can be ordered in print form or as ASCII files on diskettes, as well as searched. The Fylkesarkivet i Sogn og Fjordane [http://www.sffarkiv.no/], the County Archive of Sogn og Fjordane in Leikanger, is an example of a county archives with a large number of genealogical databases limited to its jurisdiction, including eight censuses between 1701 and 1900. Searches of the census ASP databases are by parish, farm, first and father's names, or occupation. Selecting a farm name calls up a table listing all individuals enumerated at that location. 

Like many other countries, the Norwegian Social Science Data Services [http://www.nsd.uib.no/english/] assists the research community in gaining access to computerized numeric and textual data sources. Archivnett (Archive Net Norway) [http://arkivnett.kulturnett.no/artikkel.php?navn=archivenet], part of Kulturnett Norge (Culture Net Norway), offers searches for additional census and census-like records, including transcriptions of the tingbøker from the 1600s. (A tingbok is a court record book containing summaries of cases.) 

To pick up the largest number of matches to census records in Norwegian archives, use the word "folketeljing" (census; the plural is folketeljingar). 

Sweden 
According to the Anno 1890 site, the first Swedish census was taken in 1749. The National Archives of Sweden is transcribing the 1890 census, a project begun in 1994, with the goal of indexing all 4.8 million individuals then living in Sweden. 

Anno 1890: The Swedish Census 1890 [Swedish: http://www.foark.umu.se/folk/ and English: http://www.foark.umu.se/census/Index.htm]. Produced by Arkionand the Research Archives in Umeå, this census covers the Swedish countiesNorrbotten, Västerbotten, Västernorrland, Jämtland, and Värmland. The database can also produce statistics, but only at the parish level within a county. All data from the original schedules is recorded only in Swedish. A glossary/dictionary is available which translates into English many of the most common terms. 

The Demographic Data Base [http://www2.ddb.umu.se/index_eng.html], hosted at Umeå University, contains a subset of the main DDB database called Popum. Indiko ("individuals from selected cohorts") [http://www.ddb.umu.se/indiko/index_eng.html], the subset, can be searched or browsed. Ecclesiastical parish registers form the primary data sources for Popum and Indiko. Only the parish of Tuna in the Sundsvall region is searchable for free; the other 47 parishes require a subscription. 

The Swedish Social Science Data Service [http://www.ssd.gu.se/enghome.html] at Göteborg University is the data archives for the arts and humanities. 
 

United Kingdom
The United Kingdom's National Statistics [http://www.statistics.gov.uk/] contains a population start page [http://www.statistics.gov.uk/themes/population/default.asp]. StatBase [http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/mainmenu.asp] is the U.K.'s browsable/searchable catalog of statistical information and links to data sets in various formats from statistical agencies throughout the U.K. 

According to the Public Record Office [http://www.pro.gov.uk] of England, Wales and the U.K., official census data was compiled every decade beginning in 1801. Records remain closed for 100 years. Personal information was not recorded until 1841, and World War II prevented the taking of a census in 1941. The 1901 census is the first national census of the 20th century to be digitized in its entirety by any government and made accessible through a public Web site on a user-pay basis. Unfortunately, after its launch this year, the site was overwhelmed with requests and remained shut down 3 months later (April 1, 2002). Additional information about the U.K. census appears in the PRO's Learning Curve virtual exhibit "Focus on ... The Census" [http://learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/focuson/census/], and an online exhibit from its "Pathways to the Past" series prepared for the release of the 1901 Census Online: "1901: Living at the Time of the Census" [http://www.pro.gov.uk/pathways/census/default.htm]. 

Family historians will appreciate the gateway site Origins.net [http://www.origins.net], which as of April 1, 2002, could be searched simultaneously or independently for English and Scottish ancestors by surname. More search options are available by visiting English Origins and Scots Origins, as well as the newest addition, Irish Origins. 

The Census Information Gateway [http://www.census.ac.uk/] was established in partnership with the British research community and contains information about data sets from the most recent U.K. census held on April 29, 2001. Additional information about the establishment of the gateway can be found through the ESRC/JISC Census of Population Programme [http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/research/census/] hosted at Leeds University. 

Developing the Collection of Historical and Contemporary Census Data and Related Materials (CHCC) into a Major Learning and Teaching Resource [http://www.chcc.ac.uk/] received funding for 4 years beginning in October 2000 from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). Some teaching resources are available through the Links to Learning and Teaching Materials section. Individual university initiatives such as Staffordshire University's Victorian Census Project [http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_soc_sciences/census/vichome.htm], already underway at the time the CHCC was started, are developing statistical data sets and educational resources covering counties. 

The Great Britain Historical Database Online (GBHD Online) [http://hds.essex.ac.uk/gbh.asp], is part of the History Data Service, U.K. Data Archive, University of Essex. Created by Humphrey Southall, David Gilbert, and Ian Gregory as part of the Great Britain Historical GIS Programme (University of Portsmouth) [http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/gbhgis/], the GBHD Online database includes some statistical data from selected censuses dating between 1841 and 1931. The database is only accessible upon registration with the History Data Service for a period of 12 months. 

The U.K. Data Archive (UKDA) [http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/] holds the largest collection of electronic numeric data for social science studies in the U.K. One of its units, the History Data Service [http://hds.essex.ac.uk], maintains the Great Britain Historical Database Online. The HDS also contains resources that support the use of census and statistical data in an educational setting. 

MIMAS [http://www.mimas.ac.uk/] or Manchester Information & Associated Services, formerly known as MIDAS, also operates as a national data center, with support from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The site provides a gateway to various types of data sets, including census and statistical information, for eligible U.K. institutions. The MIMAS Census Dissemination Unit [http://census.ac.uk/cdu/] maintains a Census Knowledge Base, which covers the 1981 and 1991 U.K. census data sets. Extensive online resources, including software (some for purchase), are available to help use these data sets. Developed by members of the MIMAS Census Dissemination Unit, CasWeb [http://census.ac.uk/casweb/] offers U.K. registered institutional users 1991 U.K. census statistics and digitized boundary data. 

The Data Depot [http://www.datadepot.co.uk] in the U.K. offers demographic and GIS data sets for the U.K. and Europe. Some free population data is available as downloadable tables and reports. 

England and Wales 
The Society of Genealogists (U.K.) [http://www.sog.org.uk/] operates thefee-based English Origins [http://www.englishorigins.com], itself part of Origins.net. There are, however, no historical census records on English Origins, instead these sites rely on other documents such as wills, land transfers, etc. 

Competing with English Origins, the RootsWeb-hosted U.K. Census Online or FreeCen [http://freecen.rootsweb.com/] project provides a free, searchable database of 19th century U.K. census returns. FreeCen is part of FreeUKGEN, an initiative aimed at helping make high quality primary (or near-primary) records of relevance to U.K. genealogy conveniently and freely available online. (Other projects associated with the FreeUKGEN initiative include FreeBMD and FreeREG)." FreeGEN was started in July 1999 by Brian Randell (GenUKI, Devon and Newcastle University) and John Lerwill (genealogist and computer systems developer). 

Another subproject within U.K. Census Online is the Cornish Online Census Project [http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~kayhin/ukocp.html]: "Over 100 volunteers worldwide are transcribing the returns for the Cornwall 1891 and 1841 census.... Another 14 counties are also underway or about to start." 

1891, England: Cambridge St Andrew the Less 1891 Census Index [http://www.cfhs.org.uk/CambridgeStAndrewtheLess1891/index.html], Cambridgeshire Family History Society. This database, covering only one enumeration district, contains 17,096 transcribed records. 

1891, England: 1891 Census Search [http://www.haverhill-uk.com/genealogy/census/index.shtml], Haverhill Family History Group, Suffolk Family History Society. The database contains 14,087 records for Haverhill and surrounding communities bearing charming English names such as Helions Bumpstead, Shudy Camps, and Steeple Bumpstead. 

1901 March 31, England and Wales: 1901 Census Online [http://www.census.pro.gov.uk/], Public Record Office. This site had a rude awakening to the realities of consumer demand when it opened and then closed again in early January 2002. As of April 1, 2002, a more robust configuration is undergoing testing to simulate high demand. The name index contains over 32 million entries and can be searched for free. The individual digitized census schedule pages can be purchased through a credit or debit card, or through a voucher card system similar to prepaid cell phone cards. According to the online tutorial, you can search by name (Person Search), address, place, institution, or vessel. A successful search will yield a name, age, birthplace, county, and civil parish. In the payment section, the minimum charge is £5. Viewing a transcription of an individual page costs 50p. A transcription for others living in the same household will cost another 50p. Viewing the digital facsimile or image of the original census schedule costs 75p per image. Searches are session-based, and a session may be suspended for up to 48 hours by the user (for a bathroom break or another pint of medicinal ale). 

Ireland 
The Central Statistics Office [http://www.cso.ie/] maintains current statistics for Ireland (excluding Northern Ireland). The category for population figures in the Principal Statistics link is called Demography and Labour Force. Tabular data is linked to downloadable Adobe Acrobat PDF files. The EireStat Spreadsheet Service [http://www.eirestat.cso.ie/], also known as Databank Direct, contains population and vital statistics figures. 

Irish Origins [http://www.irishorigins.com/] , launched on March 25, 2002, as the latest addition to Origins.net, indexes "over 22,351 Irish genealogy Web pages, containing 1,437,505 names, including census data, Griffith's valuations, ships passenger lists, church records, convict records, and more." Searches are free and many of the matches link to free Web sites. 

According to the National Archives of Ireland [http://www.nationalarchives.ie/], the only two online census databases are those of Leitrim-Roscommon for 1901 and that of Clare County Library [http://www.clarelibrary.ie], also for 1901. The Leitrim-Roscommon Genealogy Web Site [http://www.leitrim-roscommon.com/] covers the Irish counties of Leitrim and Roscommon. Two census databases are available: 1749 and 1901. The 1749 census was conducted by Bishop Synge of Elphin for the Church of Ireland as a means of determining the ratio of Protestants to Catholics. (The former lost.) The 1901 database includes five other counties besides Leitrim and Roscommon. The Leitrim-Roscommon site also offers two other databases for use with the 1851 Ireland census: the Townland Database, with information on the towns and townland in these counties, and the IreAtlas Townland Database, whichdoes the same, but for all of Ireland in the 1851 census. 

The Database of Irish Historical Statistics [http://www.qub.ac.uk/cdda/iredb/dbhme.htm], maintained at the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis (CDDA), Queen's University of Belfast, contains all population censuses from the first count in 1821 to 1971. The CDDA also has a data set based on the incomplete Irish census of 1813. The database records carry no nominal information. According to the site, many of the 19th century schedules were destroyed by fire in 1922. I recommend the History Data Service [http://hds.essex.ac.uk/] as the first access point to these data sets. 

Scotland 
The 2001 Scotland Census [http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/grosweb/grosweb.nsf/pages/censushm], hailed as the first under a Scottish parliament, was held on April 29 and managed by the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) [http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/]. The office is working with two vendors to develop online and offline delivery of statistical data from the census returns. You can access the pilot Web site for this system, known as the SCROL (Scottish Census Results Output Library) Project, at [http://www.scrolpilot.org.uk/. The site, not fully functional yet, features analytic tables and census data mapped to a Geographic Information System. The project is targeted for completion by March 2003. GROS also provides online demographic statistics in tabular form or as downloadable files. 

1881, 1891, 1901, Scotland: Scots Origins [http://www.scotsorigins.com/], General Register Office for Scotland. Described as the "official government source of genealogical data for Scotland," Scots Origins includes digital facsimiles of the 1891 and 1901 Scottish censuses. Although searchable, the 1881 Scottish census, also available, does not have any page images. Scots Origins charges "£6 (check currency) for 30 'page credits' valid for 24 consecutive hours." 
 

Multinational
Many multinational collaborative projects involve the genealogical community in census transcriptions. Many of these, independent of WorldGenWeb, are based in the U.S. and the Scandinavian countries. 

The Council of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) [http://www.nsd.uib.no/Cessda/] "promotes the acquisition, archiving, and distribution of electronic data for social science teaching and research in Europe." Its site features three clickable maps of social sciences data archives in Europe, North America, and elsewhere in the world. CESSDA is affiliated with the International Federation for Data Organizations (IFDO) [http://www.gesis.org/en/cooperation/data_service/ifdo/]. 

The International Institute of Social History [http://www.iisg.nl/] in the Netherlands contains a searchable database for retrieving online census data or the locations of census and statistical data. 

Headquartered in Paris and established twice, once in 1928 and again in 1947, the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population [http://www.iussp.org/] "promotes scientific studies of demography and population-related issues." Some of its publications are available for free. The IUSSP-sponsored Population and Environment Research Network (PERN) [http://www.populationenvironmentresearch.org/] contains a research database that leads, in some cases, to full-text demographic resources. 

NORDGUIDE [http://otatrip.hut.fi/nordinfo/nordguide/index.html], "a directory of databases in the Nordic Countries" sponsored by NordInfo and the Nordic Council, is the most convenient starting point for locating publicly available databases in the Scandinavian countries and Iceland. Census databases list in the subject category, Demographics. 

The North Atlantic Population Project [http://www.pop.umn.edu/napp/index.html] is an enormous project to compile a database of personal information for 90 million individuals enumerated in five North Atlantic nations in the 19th century. The countries are Canada, Iceland, Norway, the U.K. (England, Wales, and Scotland), and the U.S. Primarily, this project coordinates funding and sets standards for encoding data to facilitate analysis and research by social scientists and others. The database will use, unless plans change, a software system under development called the Integrated International Microdata Access System (IIMAS). Simultaneous release of the data is planned in Britain, Norway, and the U.S. in late 2005. 

The SSNE Database or Scotland, Scandinavia, & Northern Europe, 1580-1707 [http://www.abdn.ac.uk/ssne/], hosted at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, was authored by Dr. Steve Murdoch and Dr. Alexia Grosjean. The database contains over 6,000 records, drawn from a variety of text sources, on individuals from "Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales who migrated to or worked in Denmark-Norway and Sweden-Finland." Although none of the text source fields contain the word "census," the SSNE is an important research resource due to the amount of narrative detail for each individual and the number of search options. 

The U.N. Statistics Division [http://www.un.org/Depts/unsd/] contains some free population tables, along with other statistical data available by subscription. The UNSTATS Common Database, which includes demographic information, is available in demonstration mode. 
 

Software, Standards, and the Academic Research Community

Software 
The granddaddy of statistical analysis software, as every college and university math and social science major knows, is SPSS [http://www.spss.com/]. Some other well-known general statistical software packages developed in the U.S., often by the academic community, over the past 20 to 30 years include GenStat [http://www.vsn-intl.com/], MINITAB [http://www.minitab.com/], NCSS Statistical Analysis System[http://www.ncss.com/], P-STAT[http://www.pstat.com/], the SAS Family [http://www.sas.com/], Statistica [http://www.statsoft.com/], and SUDAAN [http://www.rti.org/sudaan/]. Users can find more examples of statistical software at the Stata Corporation [http://www.stata.com/links/stat_software.html]. 

Not to be outdone, since 1981 the U.K. academic community has developed and licensed an impressive range of software for working with census and statistical data sets. Some of this software, including Web-based interfaces such as CasWeb, is described on the MIMAS Census Dissemination Unit's Software page [http://census.ac.uk/cdu/software/]. 

Descartes [http://www.mimas.ac.uk/descartes/], formerly Iris and one of the most interesting and available in a demonstration mode as a Java applet, is a visualization tool for census data. The Descartes software (described in more detail through links at [http://borneo.gmd.de/and/)was developed in Germany by the Knowledge Discovery Team of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's (Fraunhofer Company) Institute für Autonome intelligente Systeme (AiS, Institute for Autonomous Intelligent Systems) [http://ais.gmd.de/index.en.html]. In its commercial version (dialoGIS), you can view Descartes at the University of Idaho's Idaho Geospatial Data Center [http://geolibrary.uidaho.edu/]. The AiS Knowledge Discovery Team is also involved in several other data mining projects involving visualization modes [http://www.ais.fraunhofer.de/KD/index.html]. 

BLAISE [http://neon.vb.cbs.nl/blaise/], under development by Statistics Netherlands, is "a tool for data collection. It also helps you in an easy and straightforward way through the subsequent data processing steps (like, tabulation, adjustment weighting, and statistical analysis)." Available for Windows only, the product is used worldwide. 

NESSTAR (Networked Social Science Tools and Resources) [http://www.nesstar.org/] is a client-server software suite funded by the European Commission and developed by the data archives community and its users. Jostein Ryssevik and Simon Musgrave, lead co-developers of NESSTAR, called the system "The Social Science Dream Machine" in a paper delivered at the May 1999 IASSIST conference.NESSTAR is used for distributing statistical and other kinds of numeric data via the Internet. The NESSTAR site supplies the client and server software, along with extensive documentation. 

The Virtual Data Center Project: An Operational Social Science Digital Data Library [http://www.thedata.org/], ajoint project of the Harvard-MIT Data Center and Harvard University Library, sounds very much like an American version of NESSTAR. Given that both use the DDI and that NESSTAR already has a full suite of software serving the same purpose, one can't help but wonder about the future of this project. The project sponsors claim it will be unique as open-source software and as a public collection of social science data. The project's grant, funded by agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the FBI, DARPA, the Library of Congress, and the National Library of Medicine, among others, runs from July 1, 1999, to June 30, 2002. 

Standards 
The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) [http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/DDI/] is an XML Document Type Definition (DTD) led by the Inter-University Consortium for Political And Social Research (ICPSR) [http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/index.html]. Beta testing of the DTD began in 1999 following 4 years of meetings by the DDI Committee. Version 1 of the DTD was published on March 24, 2000, and is used around the world in various numeric data projects. 

The GEDCOM (Genealogical Data Communication) specification for the storage and interchange of family history data was developed by the LDS Church. The current version 5.5 is dated 1995 [http://www.gendex.com/gedcom55/55gctoc.htm]. Beginning in the early 1990s, several individuals developed programs to convert GEDCOM data files to HTML [see the WorldConnect Project history for details; http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/wchistory.html]. GenTech, Inc. [http://www.gentech.org/], a nonprofit corporation, released version 1.1 of its Genealogical Data Model in May 2000. GenTech also operates the GEDCOM Testbook Project [http://www.gentech.org/TestBook2001/], a scorecard to see how well GEDCOM acts in its capacity as a data interchange standard. GedX.com is developing GEDCOM Explorer (GedX) [http://www.gedx.com/gedx/default.html] as a shareware "utility for viewing, modifying, converting, and otherwise working with GEDCOM Files." 

The Historical International Classification of Occupations (HISCO) [http://www.iisg.nl/research/hisco.html] is an important component in the international effort by historical demographers to standardize census data. Hosted by the International Institute of Social History, HISCO is based on the 1968 version of the International Labour Office's International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO). Occupational information dates range between 1690-1970. 

IPUMS (Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Census Microdata for Social and Economic Research) [http://www.ipums.umn.edu/], created in October 1997 at the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, is both a specification and a database. Two versions of the standard exist: IPUMS-USA, a free census database covering 1850 to 1990, and IPUMS-International (IPUMSi), under development by international teams. The IPUMS databases form the core of the North American partners' contribution to the North Atlantic Population Project [http://www.pop.umn.edu/napp/index.html]. 

Academic Research Community 
In addition to academic and research department units working with specific census data, as well as the various multi- and international organizations already mentioned, a number of multinational research projects involving the academic community are underway. 

The International Federation for Data Organizations (IFDO) [http://www.gesis.org/en/cooperation/data_service/ifdo/], hosted by GESIS (German Social Science Infrastructure Service), is an international association established to coordinate the development, collection, and use of social science research data. UNESCO supports IFDONet [http://www.ifdo.org/index.htm], also known as Social Science & Data Archives on the Net. IFDONet includes documentation about data archiving and links to IFDO and CESSDA member sites. 

A volunteer association of demographic scholars and others, the International Microdata Access Group(IMAG) [http://prdh3.demo.umontreal.ca/dillon/IMAG/guiding.html] exists "to preserve original population data, microdata, and their supporting documentation, and to improve access to these data in accordance with national confidentiality standards." The Participants and affiliated projects link contains a list of various projects involving online census data. 

The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) [http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/index.html], founded in 1962 and currently based at the University of Michigan as part of the Institute for Social Research, "maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant." ICPSR's membership includes 400 colleges and universities around the world. 

Statistical and Scientific Database Management (SSDBM) [http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/ssdbm/], part of the Association for Computing Machinery, Special Interest Group on Management of Data (ACM SIGMOD) [http://www.acm.org/sigmod/], contains links to descriptions of the SSDBM conferences from 1981 to the present. Beginning with 1997, the descriptions link to selected SSDBM conference Web sites. The SSDBM is part of the larger Anthology digital library [http://www.acm.org/sigmod/dblp/db/anthology.html] operated by ACM SIGMOD for database systems researchers. Bibliographic records for Anthology form part of the DBLP Bibliography [http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/index.html and mirrors]. The DBLP also contains a list of DB Research Groups[http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/groups.html]. 

A non-profit organization chartered in the U.S., Very Large Data Bases (VLDB) [http://www.vldb.org/] promotes "scholarly work in databases and related fields throughout the world." The VLDB Journal [http://www.vldb.org/dblp/db/journals/vldb/index.html] is published on behalf of the VLDB Endowment by Springer Verlag. The VLDB Conferences, begun in 1975, distribute leading-edge research into VLDBs. According to its Web site, "The full text of all VLDB Conference papers from 1982-1999 is available online from www.vldb.org and from ACM SIGMOD." 

Conclusion
Genealogical research is forever. Family trees, to borrow physicist Freeman Dyson's memorable phrase, are infinite in all directions, at least into the future. I've never met a genealogist who's completed a family tree, because, at some point, written records of past events are unavailable (accidentally lost or purposefully destroyed). While statistical data can provide a starting point for genealogical research by giving the researcher an idea of the volume of data available, it is the personal information found in nominal census schedules that most serve a genealogist's purpose. This information helps verify family relations and whether the individual described in the census is a person of interest. 

Family history organizations, social science researchers, the historical community, and the LDS Church all play an invaluable role in ensuring the survival and conversion of public census records to electronic formats. New Web tools and massive online databases make it easier than ever to begin locating one's ancestors.