Im looking for a FREE site where I can view old U.S. census records?

Question

Im looking for a FREE site where I can view old U.S. census records?

Answer 1

There is no site that I know of, which has ALL US census records for free.  Ancestry does have them all.. but for a fee.

Your local library may have a subscription to ancestry or heritage quest that can be used there.

edit

the time frame for census records release is 72 yrs.. not 30 yrs. LDS only has a transcribed copy of the 1880 census.. it can help you to an extent, but the FULL COPY has much more info of value.

Answer 2

Shirley T nailed it; the Mormons have the 1880, complete, and some US Gen Web pages have some years for some counties.

My night wouldn't be complete unless I asked someone to be smarter. Think - if you could get a three-course meal delivered to your door, for FREE, would you ever go to a restaurant? No; you would not. All the restaurants in town would go out of business.

Ancestry and Heritage Quest charge money for access to the 1790 - 1930 censuses. They would not be in business if there was a FREE site for the all of the censuses.

Some libraries have Heritage Quest. Many FHC's have volunteers with Ancestry subscriptions, and they will let you look up people from the FHC when they are open; but otherwise, pay the fee or do without.

Answer 3

Most sites Ive seen online you ahve to pay.Check your local library.....ours has 1 or 2 computers set on ONLY for genealogy..If your town is to small try a bigger one.

Here...you can use it frrr for one hour then they say let the next person go..but if no one is there you can stay on.If you're really into that Its worth the drive to the library versus buying software or paying for it online.

And to...All court house records are free to look at.Go in and ask for the certain yr and they'll hand you a book.They want look up any names but let you sit there and look long as you want.

Answer 4

You can search the various US Census records  at this link:

http://search.labs.familysearch.org/reco...

Years available:

1850 (70% complete)

1880 (100% complete)

1900 (98% complete)

Answer 5

FamilySearch.org has the 1880 census only.

Various genweb sites have them for their own counties.  For instance put TexasGenWeb (or whatever state)in your search engine and then select the county.  

Ancestry.Com is the only website that has all U.S. censuses through 1930. The 1940 and later are not available to the public yet.

They are not released for 72 years after the census to protect people's privacy.  They have transcribed the censuses but you can also look at the original images.  The transcription do have errors but when you see the original image you can have pity on the transcribers.

As Wendy suggested, your public library might have a subscription to Ancestry.Com you can use.

Answer 6

Census records  are released for public viewing after 30 years. Contact the U.S. Census Bureau. If the records you're after are no later than the 1970 Census, you should be okay.