Lancashire 1861 Census

£34.95 (plus £2.50 p&p) from S&N Genealogy Supplies, West Wing, Manor Farm, Chilmark, Salisbury, SP3 5AF. Tel: 01722 716121, Web: www.genealogysupplies.com.

This four DVD set comprises images of the enumerators' books for the 1861 census of Lancashire, and also includes a places index and street indexes to the larger towns and cities. This is a huge amount of data, with the cities of Manchester and Liverpool and towns from as far apart as Barrow-in-Furness and Warrington featuring.

So how does this set compare with online census offerings? Well, the latter have surname indexes, and hence make searching for particular people much easier. However, the DVD set is faster to use, and is not reliant on an internet connection. It definitely has the edge if one's ancestors were living in a particular area, or if the researcher is studying a specific place. It is best scrolled through like a microfilm, and in this set, the user certainly gets an awful lot of high resolution images to browse for their cash!