This information has been prepared to help the Family History researcher find the resources available at or through the Heritage Library.
These resources can be looked at as being comprised of three parts.
The first part is made up of those items that are readily available because they are either part of the Library's holdings, or of their web site subscriptions, or of their web site postings.
The second part is the comprehensive Census search information available thru the internet from organizations, namely Cyndi's List and the LDS, that have a staff of people devoting themselves to the task of identifying, compiling or acquiring all Census data throughout the world. It is obvious that it will be hard to find better sources than those because of their large staff and singleness of purpose.
The third part is a compendium of the web sites that have been found by those working at the library to be of particular use. Some of these are from published genealogical articles and some have been found by using the various search engines on the Internet. Most all of these are also cited within Cyndi's Lists, but they are compiled here so as to bring out their usefulness.
With respect to Census Substitutes, it can be said that when there have never been any censuses, or when census records have been destroyed, almost any data base listing persons and families can be used as a substitute. A famous case is the 1790 census for Virginia which was lost and recreated from tax lists. This substitute has such credence that it is often accepted as a matter of course without caveat. This acceptance is in spite of it being data from six or eight years before 1790.
So, the researchers must use whatever they can find- whether it is the Doomsday book in England, or the Tax Applotments in Ireland or various court records. The term "Vital Records" is useful in finding substitutes, because it is so broadly used by the LDS in organizing their compiled records. It is also important to study Cyndi's List to learn the terms used for various substitutes and thereby identify the possibilities in case one is utilizing keywords in internet search engines.
