UK Census Records 1841–1921 and the 1939 Register

UK census records list everyone in a household on one night: names, ages, relationships, occupations and, from 1851, where each person was born. For England and Wales the returns from 1841 to 1921 are open to the public, the 1931 returns were destroyed in 1942, and no census was taken in 1941. The 1939 Register, taken on 29 September 1939, fills much of that gap.

You can search free indexes on FamilySearch, view the originals free at The National Archives in Kew, or use the subscription sites Ancestry and Findmypast from home. For families with Polish roots, the birthplace and nationality columns are often the first written clue to where an ancestor came from.

What a census return is and why it matters

A census is a count of the population taken every ten years. From 1841 the enumerators in England and Wales recorded people by name, household by household, and those name-by-name returns survive for every census from 1841 to 1921. Each return is a snapshot of one address on one night, so a run of censuses lets you follow a family from decade to decade.

Census returns are best used alongside civil registration. A census age or birthplace points you to the right birth certificate, and a certificate confirms which of several people with the same name is yours. Our guide to birth, marriage and death certificates in England and Wales explains that side of the search.

Census dates and what each year added (1841 to 1921)

Ages and addresses refer to the census night. The table gives that date for each year and The National Archives series reference for the returns.

Census	Census night	TNA series	What changed
1841	6 June 1841	HO 107	First census to name everyone. Ages of people aged 15 or over rounded down to the nearest five years. Birthplace only as ‘same county’ (Y or N) or Scotland, Ireland or foreign parts.
1851	30 March 1851	HO 107	Relationship to head of household, marital status, age at last birthday, and parish and county of birth (country only for people born outside England and Wales).
1861	7 April 1861	RG 9	Same pattern as 1851.
1871	2 April 1871	RG 10	Disability column expanded.
1881	3 April 1881	RG 11	Same pattern; widely indexed and a good starting point.
1891	5 April 1891	RG 12	Employer, employed or neither.
1901	31 March 1901	RG 13	Employer, worker or own account; whether working at home.
1911	2 April 1911	RG 14	Household schedules kept for the first time; for married women, years married and children born and still living; nationality of people born abroad.
1921	19 June 1921	RG 15	Age in years and months; employer and place of work; country and state or province of birth for people born outside the UK; orphanhood question for children; marriage length and children questions dropped.

The 1911 census

The 1911 census is the first for which The National Archives kept the household schedules themselves, so you usually see the form filled in by the head of household, often in their own handwriting, as well as the enumerator’s summary. It asked married women how long they had been married, how many children had been born alive, how many were still living and how many had died. For anyone born abroad it asked for nationality: British by parentage, naturalised British subject with the year of naturalisation, or the foreign nationality.

The 1921 census

The 1921 census was postponed from 24 April to 19 June 1921 because of industrial unrest. Findmypast, The National Archives’ digitisation partner, published it online on 6 January 2022 and held it exclusively for three years; Ancestry added it in January 2025. It is also free to view on Findmypast at The National Archives in Kew, Manchester Central Library and the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. For many families it is the last open census to show grandparents as children. For people born outside the UK it asked for the country and the state or province of birth, which can narrow down a Polish birthplace.

The 100-year rule, the lost 1931 census and the 1941 gap

Personal information from a census is closed for 100 years. The Census Act 1920, as amended by the Census (Confidentiality) Act 1991, makes disclosing it an offence until 100 years after the census date, which is why the 1921 returns appeared in January 2022.

1931: the individual returns for England and Wales were destroyed by fire on 19 December 1942. Only the published statistics survive. The Scottish 1931 returns were stored in Edinburgh and survived; they are due for release in 2031.
1941: no census was taken because of the Second World War.
1951: the returns exist but stay closed under the 100-year rule until the 2050s.

That leaves a thirty-year gap, and the 1939 Register is the main name-by-name source for the years in between.

The 1939 Register

The 1939 Register was taken on 29 September 1939, a few weeks after war broke out, to issue identity cards and manage rationing and wartime planning. It covers about 40 million civilians in England and Wales in more than 65,000 volumes. The National Archives series is RG 101.

What it records

address and schedule number
surname and first names
sex
exact date of birth (not just age)
marital status
occupation

The exact date of birth is its great strength. Its weakness for Polish research is that it records neither birthplace nor nationality, so you will need a census, a naturalisation file or a certificate for those.

From 1948 the Register was also used as the NHS register and kept up to date until 1991. Most name changes in that period, including women’s married names, were added, although not every change was reported. These annotations can link a 1939 entry to a later marriage or death.

Closed entries and how they are opened

An entry stays closed for 100 years from the person’s date of birth or until there is proof of death. Closed lines are blacked out in the online images. To open one, you first need to find the closed entry and have evidence of death, such as a death certificate:

Findmypast subscribers can ask Findmypast to check the closed record free of charge.
Everyone else, including Ancestry subscribers, uses The National Archives’ Freedom of Information request form. There is a fixed charge, and a successful request brings a transcription of the entry. The National Archives says opened entries appear on Findmypast within 10 to 20 working days and on Ancestry after 12 to 18 months.

The Register is on Findmypast and Ancestry, with transcriptions on MyHeritage, and you can view it free in the reading rooms at Kew. Scotland and Northern Ireland had their own registers, described below.

Where to search census records and the 1939 Register

Start with The National Archives’ research guides, which list every access option and the correct series reference. Then choose a search route:

FamilySearch: free indexes to the censuses from 1841 to 1911, with links to images on Findmypast. You need a free account.
FreeCEN: free volunteer transcripts for parts of England, Wales and Scotland; coverage varies by county and year.
The National Archives, Kew: free access to the census, including 1921, and the 1939 Register on its public computers. Many local libraries and record offices also give free access to 1841 to 1911.
Ancestry and Findmypast: subscription or pay-per-view sites with indexes and images for 1841 to 1921 and the 1939 Register. Each site made its own transcriptions, so a name you cannot find on one may be indexed differently on the other.

Search tips

Search a birth year range of up to five years either side; census ages drift.
Try the first name alone with the place and an approximate age when the surname is foreign.
Use wildcards and phonetic variants: Kowalski may be indexed as Kovalski, Kowalsky or Cowalski.
If a person vanishes, browse the street; many sites let you move page by page through an enumeration district.
Record the full reference (series, piece, folio, page) so you or anyone else can find the entry again.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

Scottish census returns from 1841 to 1921 are searched on ScotlandsPeople, the official site of National Records of Scotland. The questions match England and Wales, but for 1911 and 1921 the household schedules were copied into enumeration books and not kept. The Scottish 1939 Register is held by National Records of Scotland, which supplies extracts on request. For the island of Ireland most nineteenth-century returns were lost, many in the 1922 fire at the Four Courts in Dublin; the 1901 and 1911 censuses survive and are free on the National Archives of Ireland website. Northern Ireland’s 1926 returns were destroyed and the 1937 returns remain closed. For the Northern Ireland 1939 Register, ask the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) about access.

Polish-born ancestors in the census and 1939 Register

Before 1918 there was no Polish state, so someone born in Warsaw, Poznań or Kraków was a subject of Russia, Prussia (Germany) or Austria. Census entries reflect that, and you will often see:

Birthplace: ‘Russia’, ‘Russian Poland’, ‘Poland Russia’, ‘Prussia’ or ‘Germany’, and sometimes a town written as the enumerator heard it, such as ‘Plotsk’ for Płock or ‘Lodz’ without its accent.
Nationality (1911 and 1921): ‘Russian subject’, ‘Russian’, ‘German’ or ‘Austrian’ in 1911, and in 1921 sometimes ‘Polish’ for people who had become citizens of the new Polish state. In 1911 a naturalised person should appear as ‘Naturalised British subject’ with the year of naturalisation.
Names: anglicised first names (Joseph for Józef, John for Jan) and phonetic surname spellings that change from one census to the next.

Treat ‘Russia’ with care. It can mean anywhere in the former Russian Empire, from Lithuania and Belarus to central Poland and Ukraine, and it says nothing about ethnicity or religion.

An illustrative example

This example is invented to show the method. A 1911 schedule for a Manchester household lists ‘Joseph Kowalski, head, 34, tailor’, birthplace ‘Russia Poland, Plotsk’, nationality ‘Naturalised British subject 1908’. The age gives a birth around 1876 or 1877. The naturalisation year points to a Home Office case file, which may give the exact date and town of birth. ‘Plotsk’ is the town of Płock, so the next step is the civil-religious registers for Płock parishes, searchable in the Geneteka index and held in the Polish State Archives.

From a British record to a Polish record

Once a census or 1939 entry shows a Polish-born ancestor, work through these steps:

Collect every census entry for the person and compare birthplaces and ages; the most specific version is usually the most useful.
Use the 1939 Register for an exact date of birth if the person was alive in September 1939.
If the census says ‘naturalised’, look for the naturalisation file, which often gives the precise town and parents’ names. See our guide to naturalisation records for Poles in the UK.
Check the British marriage certificate for the father’s name and occupation.
Identify the modern Polish name of the town and its parish or civil registry, then search for the birth entry, as explained in finding a birth entry in Poland.

A town name plus a birth year within two or three years is usually enough to begin a Polish search. A birthplace given only as ‘Russia’ or ‘Poland’ needs another source first.