CensusTools

In my February newsletter I featured a section on three online sources for images of actual census records. In the past three months there have been some significant increases in the material available so I will take the opportunity to publish an update.

Ancestry.com

In February Ancestry.com had census images online available for the years 1790, 1900 and 1920. 1790 was complete. 1900 and 1920 were partial collections. Three months later the complete 1880 census is now online. 1900 and 1920 are almost complete and 1910 is online with 36 states available. They appear to remain committed to releasing the rest of the federal census as they become available. With the biggest years out of the way, the rest may well come quickly.

The Images Online collection is available by subscription. For researchers who are already subscribers to Ancestry's other paid collections, the cost is $39.95 for a one year subscription and $19.95 for a quarterly subscription. For non-members, the prices are $59.95 and $19.95 respectively. An Images Online subscription also includes online access to digitized images of the Civil War Pension Index. Further details regarding Ancestry.com's online images are available in my February 2001 newsletter.

Genealogy.com

Genealogy.com remains focused on the 1900 census. As of February they had digitally enhanced census images online for 24 states. As this newsletter goes online, 43 states are now covered. Genealogy.com provides the advantage of an online index to go along with the images, making access to Soundex films unnecessary. There is no indication at the website whether there are any plans to expand coverage to other census years.

The Genealogy.com 1900 census image collection is available by subscription. A one year subscription runs $99.99, still on sale from $129.99, and a monthly subscription is available at $19.99 per month.