The Washington State Archives’ Digital Archives has an extensive collection of census records from across the state, dating back to 1847 — 42 years before Washington became a state.

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A page from the 1860 Census

The Digital Archives’ mission is to make public records easily and freely accessible to the people. To date, well over 200 million records have been digitized.

Census records are popular among researchers, especially genealogists. If you have ancestors who lived in Washington, there is a good chance you can find them in one or more censuses available online, or possibly another type of public record.

Check out the censuses here to see if you can find your ancestors.