The objective, although not completely attained, is to create an accounting of the entire population. Because of this broadness of scope, census records are an invaluable resource to virtually every genealogist. Many people, in fact, start with information gathered from family records and advance straight to census records. Even though the census officially is a federal government record, it is a local record in the sense that it identifies the populace place by place.
Many states have name indexes to the federal censuses of their state.
A 72-year restriction on access to censuses means that the 1920 census is the latest one you can easily consult, and that the 1930 census will be open to research in the year 2002. You should also be aware that, except for some remnants and special portions, the 1890 census is not available, as much of this census was destroyed in a fire. Just recently, though, there has been an attempt to create a substitute for the 1890 census . Census information is only as good as the person who took the information, and sometimes guesses or even false information were provided. Occasionally, enumerators missed people altogether and failed to list everybody.