Yesterday we launched the Ancestry Advent Calendar and challenged you to find out, by searching our 1891 Census, what the name of Mary Christmas’s eldest son who had left home by 1901 was. The answer was JOHN. How did you get on with our festive challenge?

Our ‘15 minutes with 15 collections’ countdown reaches its climax today. As a final treat, we’ve made our United States Obituary Collection, completely free for everyone to use. Remember, this is a one-day-only offer, so get in quick!

The US Obituary Collection is an ever-expanding resource collated from hundreds of online newspapers. Every day, we scour the internet for new obituaries. When we find them, we add the key details to our index, and provide a link to the original article. If you’re looking for an American relative who died recently, this is the best place to start.

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When you find an ancestor in any of our records, it’s very easy to check whether other members are looking into the same person – and therefore could also be related to you. From the search results, click ‘View Record’ to see the transcribed information, then look for the ‘Make a connection’ box on the left. Click the link at the bottom of this box, and we’ll automatically use the information from the record you’ve found to search all our public member trees. You can view any matches, and maybe even get in touch with the members concerned.

That marks the end of 15 days of free records. Remember, you can still search all the free collections until the end of the day. See all our free record collections this month.

* Each collection will become available to search for free from 7am BST on the relevant day.  All collections will be available to search until 12 midnight BST on 15 October 2011.  To view these records you will need to register for free with Ancestry.co.uk with your name and email address.

It’s the penultimate day of our ‘15 minutes with 15 collections’ countdown! Today, we’ve made our 1901 England Census , completely free for everyone to use. It’ll only stay that way until tomorrow, so don’t miss your chance.

The 1901 Census provides a snapshot of Britain at the turn of the century, showing entire family groups and revealing crucial details about our ancestors’ lives. The records reveal a changing nation, as people were slowly coming to terms with the effects of the Industrial Revolution. As well as the usual names, ages and addresses, this census provides extra information on each person’s working habits.

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Of course, the easiest way to find individual ancestors is to use our search options. However, once you’ve one family group it’s a good idea to browse forwards and backwards through the census pages. This will show you who was living nearby – which could be extremely useful, as relatives tended to find homes close to each-other. To browse, simply click the left and right arrows to the top-right of the record image.

Come back tomorrow for free access to our United States Obituary Collection 

See all our free record collections this month 

* Each collection will become available to search for free from 7am BST on the relevant day.  All collections will be available to search until 12 midnight BST on 15 October 2011.  To view these records you will need to register for free with Ancestry.co.uk with your name and email address.