Local historians now have better access to the past following the addition of more census records to the county.

The Reference and Local Studies Library at Haverfordwest has recently acquired censuses for every parish in Pembrokeshire for the years 1841, 1871, 1881 and 1891. (Those for 1851 and 1861 are not currently available.)

The move follows the recent reorganisation of the library to provide more space for its popular local and family history collections.

Censuses provide information on people living in a parish in a particular year and are a rich source of information for both professional and amateur historians, especially family and local history researchers.

The documents have been transcribed by Cenquest operating under license from the National Archives.

Names have been arranged alphabetically and information is provided under the following categories: name, age, address, relation, condition (marital status), sex, occupation and language.

In addition to the censuses, the Reference and Local Studies Library also provides free access to the Ancestry Library website, which is provided at all Pembrokeshire's libraries.

This enables people to search online the censuses for 1841-1901 as well as indexes to births, marriages and deaths from 1837.

For more information, please contact the local and family history librarian, George Edwards, on 01437 776126 or 01437 775248.