Edinburgh censuses are available for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891. There are no surname indexes that I know of for 1841, 61 or 71, but there is a street index which tells you which film you need for a particular address. The 1851 has a fantastic, cross referenced index which is *almost* as good as the film - but the snag is that is doesnt cover all of what is now known as Edinburgh. The four volumes are Old Town, Canongate and New Town (2 vols). This index is available in the Central Library in Edinburgh and a couple of other places. The 1881 census is of course indexed on the discs available from the LDS. The 1891 census index is available at the Edinburgh Central Library and online at Scots Origins. Apparently you can now get a 'screen shot' of the record from Scots Origins. What this means in practice is that to look up someone 'in Edinburgh' in 1841,61 or 71 without an address would take weeks of work. Likewise surname trawls. Even if someone did the lookup, your lot might have gone to Glasgow for the weekend, and you might get the wrong family! In the case of the 51 census, you might get a match, but you have to remember that the census doesnt cover eg Leith, so you could get a false positive. But that is not entirely the end of the story. There is a 'work round'. Edinburgh has post office directories that start from the late 19thC.So does Leith. Depending on occupation your ancestor may be included, so you then have an address to check in the census.This is assuming you dont have a 'suitable' christening or other record to supply an address. As a final point, please remember that "Edinburgh" sometimes refers to 'Edinburghshire" so if you dont know the city you may want to ask the list where a place really was. Your ancestors might have been 'out of town', and that would narrow down your search to a smaller community. Please note, this is not an offer to do lookups. I am posting this information to help those who have recently asked for lookups and are wondering why no one responded. Judy