Census records are not equal to church records in recording personal history as they do not contain birth, marriage, death or relocation information. This is why census records must be followed year-by-year. Population is grouped by villages and by families within villages. In the cities grouping is goes by districts within the city, then by blocks.
Census records may be researched in provincial archives as microfilms until 1809 after which they are microfilmed every 5 years until 1920. Provincial archives also contain original documents until 1960 and for some places until 1989 when the last census records were made.
Census records from 1800's are available as digital pictures in Digitaaliarkisto. The usability is not the best possible, search by parish name usually works best, even if clicking through results is required as Henkikirjat is usually on the last page.
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