Durham County Record Office: the official archive service for County Durham and Darlington
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Exhibitions
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- Looking back at Consett Steel Works
- Celebrating Gala Day 2020
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County Durham remembers VE Day 1945
- 'We have come through' - Remembering VE Day 1945
- 9th Battalion DLI: From D-Day to Berlin
- 9th Battalion DLI: VE Day
- 9th Battalion DLI: In Berlin, June - September 1945
- Berlin Victory Parade, 7 September 1945
- Victory Parade at Belsen, 8 May 1945
- The Northern Echo, Victory edition, 9 May 1945
- VE Day and Durham Schools
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Burma 1945
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Rangoon Victory Parade, 15 June 1945
- VE Day and the Durham Miners' Association
- County Durham celebrates VE Day
- Haswell Victory Celebrations, 1945
- Soldier: Victory Souvenir edition, 8 May 1945
- Parade: European Victory edition, 26 May 1945
- VE Day not forgotten by one Spennymoor family
- County Durham celebrates VJ Day
- Victory Day, 8 June 1946
Census records
Information about access to census records in Durham County Record Office.
- Census records and indexes in the search room
- About census returns
- Census dates
- Searching the census from home
Census records and indexes in the search room
You can search County Durham census records for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 and 1911 in the Record Office.
There is free access in the search room to all UK census returns from 1841 to 1911 on the Ancestry website.
We have census returns for 1841-1901 on microfilm, covering the historic County Durham between the Rivers Tyne and Tees.
If you want to view the census on microfilm please and book a microfilm reader.
You can print copies of the census from microfilm or from the Ancestry website in our search room.
Our guide to Records of genealogical interest on microfilm has summary information about the census records we keep. See our guide to Census indexes for a list of all the personal name indexes that you can consult in the Microfilm Room when you visit us.
About census returns
A census of the population of England and Wales has been taken every ten years since 1801, except in 1941. The first four census returns, from 1801 to 1831, only counted the number of people and did not record details of individuals.
The information was entered on printed schedules and it included details of every person who spent the night of the census in each house.
The schedules (or returns) were designed to give the address of each house, names of the inhabitants, their ages, sex, occupations, and whether or not they had been born in the county in which they were living at the time of the census.
The recording of ages in the 1841 census return can be misleading. Exact ages in years were given for children up to the age of 14 inclusive, but the age of every person over the age of 15 was given to the next lowest multiple of five years, e.g. all those between 45 and 49 were usually described as 45.
You will find extracts from the 1851 and 1901 census returns for Crook in using the census on one of our Learning Zone units developed in partnership with Durham University.
All census returns are closed to public access for 100 years because they contain confidential personal information.
Census dates
When was the UK census taken?
Year | Month | Day |
---|---|---|
1841 | June | 6 |
1851 | March | 30 |
1861 | April | 7 |
1871 | April | 2 |
1881 | April | 3 |
1891 | April | 5 |
1901 | March | 31 |
1911 | April | 2 |
Searching the census from home
There are links to all available censuses on The National Archives and Ancestry websites. The 1881 census can also be searched on the FamilySearch website which is sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.