Take the family of Elvis Presley as an example. A quick search brings up documents that show Presley's family was the only one its street to own a home — but Elvis must have gone elsewhere to learn about music. According to the census information, Presley's family did not have a radio.

A federal moratorium is in place that states 72 years must pass before census information can be made available to the public. The 1940 census will be available in 2012.

Sullivan said the company pursued international records to aid American genealogists in pre-census research beyond the shores of the United States. Ancestry.com has also created databases using census data from the United Kingdom and Canada. Those databases were completed in April.

Ancestry.com is owed by MyFamily.com, which also runs Genealogy.com and Rootsweb.com. MyFamily.com allows families to share photos, stories, recipes with one another. In July, as a result of the census project, Ancestry.com will begin displaying photos and other documents that have been found.

Ancestry.com charges annual fees of $155.40 for U.S. records and $347.40 for world records. Monthly fees start at $29.95.

"Family history research is a hobby that never ends," Sullivan said. "The more people doing it, the more resources there are for others."

"If a grandfather is just a name, he becomes lost," said Barbara Vines Little, president of the National Genealogical Society. "If he is real and can be remembered in pictures and family stories, he remains a person . . . This project is a milestone for researchers everywhere."

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E-mail: sstewart@desnews.com