>Does anyone on this list have access to the 1851 census, or perhaps have an >index of it? I am looking for ROBERTSON family, SCOTT family, CLEGHORN or >SHORT family names. Any help at all would be so very much appreciated. Dawn, >in southern CA > Sadly, only the 2% extract of the 1851 census is readily available in a computer-readable form, and as you'll know from recent messages, it's a hit or miss business whether your area was one that got selected (e.g. there's only 2 books for Whitsome, they picked the one I'm not interested in). The only way is to search the 1861 is by going through the films, and that's something you can do yourself if you have a LDS centre near you. HOWEVER, none of these names is rare, and Robertson is very common indeed, so you can't assume that all the people with that name are related. You would need to provide (or have) much more info (location, forenames, etc) than you've given here before a search became practical. Lesley Robertson