British Data Archive

Learn about life, fashion and news in a particular census year.

1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1891, 1901

Please read our Licence before purchasing

The Census — An Essential Tool

The census records can provide vital information
about your ancestors. It records full names, addresses, occupations, ages, relationships, gender, place/county of birth and certain medical conditions, recording a snapshot of family life in years gone by.

Our objectives are to make census data affordable without the problems that transcription only projects can cause. We provide the original page images as written by the census enumerator with bookmarks to enable you to find the right section. One of the benefits of this approach is that you can spend time considering ambiguous entries which could be overlooked or misinterpreted by a transcriber. Your family knowledge can give you the edge in searching for entries that, if mis-transcribed, could hide your ancestors' names forever.

Making home research a reality has always been our aim. We will be making available on CD as much material as we can. The London 1891 Census was the first product to be launched in this series and has been a huge success, Lancashire, Yorkshire and many more counties have followed. We are constantly working on new counties and new years. We are currently negotiating to publish the Scottish Census.

Massive Multi-Buy Savings on Census Sets

Buy 6 London Census Sets and pay just £21.96 each with our Multi-Buy Savings

Buy 6 Buckinghamshire Census Sets and pay just £11.30 each with our Multi-Buy Savings

Mix and Match Savings

You don't have to buy the same county and there are savings on buying three or more sets:

Buy any 6 census sets currently available and get the 2 cheapest free!

Buy any 5 census sets currently available and save £25

Buy any 4 census sets currently available and get the cheapest set free!

Buy any 3 census sets currently available and save £15

Simply add three or more current individual census CD sets (not advance order sets or bundles) to your basket and you will automatically be given the appropriate discount.

We already have the census on CD for every county in England and Wales for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1891, as well as over 40% of the counties for 1901. See our our Latest Releases pages.

With advance orders nothing is charged until each set is released and shipped.

County Set Coverage

The enumeration districts don't follow the county boundaries and are based on parliamentary boundaries. The best way to discover what CD set you need is by using the PRO catalogue. See our latest releases to find what set you need. We also have a coverage CD that contains thousands of pages linked to menus and bookmarks to allow you to find the areas covered by our sets, the CD is £5 but includes a £5 voucher against buying census sets. A London coverage map is shown on the sample pages and further information page.

Reviews & customers comments

Our products have been praised by leading genealogy experts and amateur family historians alike. To read some of those reviews and comments, click on the reviews link.

Personal Use License

Census sets come with a personal use licence for the set. This prevents the use of the set by more than one person. The splitting of a set for resale or sharing is prohibited and is a direct breach of this license. Those in breach of the license will be liable to prosecution by British Data Archive Ltd and may well be liable to a separate action through the Crown.

If you feel unable to comply please do not purchase the sets.

People copying or splitting sets has meant that some census sets will not even repay the cost of the microfilm or the wages of the staff involved in publishing them. Such actions jeopardise the availability of an essential genealogy resource.

Library licenses are available on request, please phone for details.