1920 Census Records Free Access

What will I learn?

1920 Census records include a tremendous amount of genealogy information.

Year of immigration
Year of naturalization: A or AL - Alien; NA - Naturalized; NR - Not Reported; PA - First Papers Filed
Birthplace (town, county, and country) and mother tongue
Parent's birthplace and mother tongue
Children and others living with head of household
Age at last birthday
Trade or profession
Household address
More!

Search Tips

Some names may be misspelled in the index. The most likely reason is that the name is incorrect on the original census, but it could also be the handwriting may have been difficult to decipher, or the microfilm may have been too faded to read correctly. Use these hints if you are having difficulty finding your ancestors.

Try a wild card search using an asterisk; i.e. John* in the surname field will bring up Johns, Johnston and Johnson
Try a wild card search using a question mark; i.e. Johns?n in the surname field will bring up Johnson and Johnsen

More advanced search features for the 1920 census are available at Ancestry Advanced Search. There are 2 types of advanced searches at Ancestry. Begin with "exact match" using tips below. If you cannot find your ancestor, change the tab at the top of the search box at the Ancestry site to "ranked search".

Advanced Search - Exact Matches
- Each record must match all of the search terms you enter into the search box. If you don't get any results, try leaving some of the fields empty. If the census has a misspelling or a blank field, too much info into the search box may keep you from getting a match.
  - Search using name only without town or state. The people may not be where living where you expect, or the field may be blank or misspelled on the original record
  - Search only a particular county or town leaving the name field blank, then browse the results looking for a sound-alike or misspelled name.
  - Search only using first name (no last name) - even wild carded first names - along with county, town, and/or state.
Advanced Search - Ranked Matches
- Ranked search brings up the best possible matches first in your list of search results
  - Type in as much information as possible. The more search criteria the search engine has to match against, the more likely it is to pull the most appropriate records up to the top of your results list.
  - Add best guesses for a middle name, date and states.
  - Ranked searches do not support wildcards.

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