About Us


Stepping Stones

Stepping Stones is a small, family run company founded in 1996, based on the outskirts of the beautiful City of York in the heart of Yorkshire. We are licensced by The National Archives in London (TNA, formerly the Public Record Office or PRO) to produce the 1841 and later census returns for viewing on your computer.  We take films of the original census images (photographs of the actual handwritten books filled in by the enumerators and returning officers) and scan them in house onto our computer, then after various quality checking procedures and conversion to suitable formats for storing on CDs, DVDs and online, compile them into sets by year and county.

Our Census Sets cover the whole of England and Wales, with county boundaries defined as they were at the time the censuses were taken. We currently have all counties for 1841 available on CD, plus some of 1851, 1861 and 1871, and some of these are available on DVDs as well. (See our census pages to check which ones are available now.)

We have a huge range of Trade Directories on CD, which are scanned images of various Post Office directories, Kelly’s, Pigot’s, Trade directories, commercial directories, street directories, etc. from various years. We also have a variety of maps, showing street layouts from about 1890 - these are available on CD, see the Maps page for more information and a list of available products.

As of 8th June 2007, Stepping Stones has become a trading name of S&N, who have bought the stock and copyrights. S&N will be adding many new titles whilst continuing to produce the current titles.

Ordering Information

Payment Methods :
We accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Solo, Delta, Amex & JCB cards, also Cheques, Postal Orders and Money Orders in £ Stirling (made payable to S&N British Data Archive Ltd).

Post & Packing:
We ship all over the world. Items are £2.50 p&p worldwide, unless the item is a 'Heavy' item, which means Europe and Rest of the World shipping costs increases - see the how to order page for more details.

To Order:
The tabs above will show lists of our products when clicked on.  There is a separate page for each year of the census - click on the Census tab first, then choose a year to see all the available census sets.

Select items from the Census/Trade Directory/Maps pages by clicking on the 'Add to Basket' button alongside each product you require, and you will get a pop-up window which shows your basket. You can choose to continue shopping, or checkout your items.

More information on how to order on the How to Order page.

Returns & Cancellations Policy:
Data CDs will not normally be refunded due to the nature of the product. If a genuine mistake has been made we can offer a credit note against further purchases. These offers do not affect your statutory rights.

Other orders may be cancelled and goods returned unopened within 7 days for a refund, less postage & administrative costs; customer to bear cost of sending items back.

Contact Us

Our contact details are at the bottom of each of our web pages - you can write, email, phone or send us a fax! We usually have a telephone answering machine switched on outside office hours, and will endeavour to get back to you as soon as possible.

We also attend various Family History Fairs and shows throughout the year (listed on our News pages), where you can come along for a chat and pick up a bargain!


Thank You