(Reference #clei)
Scanned images of all of the original census enumerator's books for various counties, reproduced on multiple CD sets for reading using Adobe Acrobat Reader. (Compatible with PC and Apple Mac). IMPORTANT !
Please note: Censuses are organised by Registration Districts, which do not necessarily correspond with county boundaries. A set of census records for a Registration District may omit some places within a county, and/or include places from adjacent counties. The CDs contain the records of Registration Districts.
We are very proud of the quality of the scanned images. We have worked from films copied from the first generation films at the PRO, and have then used the very best possible film scanner currently available to digitise the images at a high resolution. Using Adobe Acrobat Reader you can zoom in and in to read the pages. You really don't have to squint to read the pages. Zoom right in without noticeable loss of detail.. You can print first class copies of any page for use in your family history documents.
These are very old original hand written records. The vast majority of pages are readable, but there may be some pages that are illegible due to faded ink and the techniques used to film the records. Our scanning is done from films and we apply enhancement techniques to obtain the best possible results. When you order the census CDs, you accept that some pages may be difficult to read or illegible.
This is real primary data. Note that the CDs contain images of the actual pages of the census enumerators' books. Real original primary research data. (Not transcriptions in text format). What you see is the original hand written documents. That does involve you reading the pages rather than typing in a name and expecting the computer to find it. However, you will very quickly become used to the handwriting styles of the different enumerators, and it is easy to click through the pages at even low magnification to spot the people you are looking for.
Reproduced by permission of the National Archives.
More details about the census CDs, samples and project schedules
