Archive for the ‘Archives, Libraries & Museums’ Category

Westminster Archives now online

March 28th, 2012 Linda Elliott

Just got this press release from our good friends at Find My Past. This is just what I wanted to have at my fingertips – the contents of the Westminster Archives!! So many of my London Ancestors lived in these parishes that this is certainly a red letter day.

 

WESTMINSTER PARISH RECORDS PUBLISHED ONLINE BY FINDMYPAST.CO.UK
. Over a million baptism, marriage and burial records dating back to 1538 now available. First time that images of the original parish records from Westminster go online. Leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has today published online for the very first time parish records held by the City of Westminster Archives Centre. The Westminster Collection at findmypast.co.uk comprises fully searchable transcripts and scanned images of the parish registers, some of which are over 400 years old.

The 1,365,731 records launched today cover the period 1538-1945 and come from over 50 Westminster churches including St Anne, Soho, St Clement Danes, St George Hanover Square, St James Westminster, St Margaret Westminster, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St Mary-le-Strand, St Paul Covent Garden.

Debra Chatfield, family historian at

findmypast.co.uk, said: "The Westminster Collection is one of the largest regional parish record collections we have ever published online and contains some truly wonderful gems. Family historians, wherever they are in the world, can now search this historical goldmine and uncover the fascinating stories of their London ancestors."

Today’s launch marks the start of a painstaking project to preserve digitally the City of Westminster Archives Centre’s collection, and sees the first tranche of its baptisms, marriages and burials go online. The remaining records are set to go live over the coming months, along with cemetery registers, wills, rate books, settlement examinations, workhouse admission and discharge books, bastardy, orphan and apprentice records, charity documents, and militia and watch records.

Adrian Autton, Archives Manager at Westminster Archives commented: "The launch of the Westminster Collection is of huge significance making Westminster records fully accessible to a global audience. This resource will be of immense value to anyone whose ancestors lived in Westminster and to anyone wishing to study the rich heritage of this truly great city."

The records can now be searched free of charge by visiting the Life Events (BMDs) section at

findmypast.co.uk, and then selecting parish baptisms or marriages or burials. Transcripts and images can be viewed with PayAsYouGo credits, vouchers or a full subscription to findmypast.co.uk.

The new Westminster Collection at

findmypast.co.uk joins a growing resource of official parish records from local archives, including Cheshire Archives & Local Studies, Manchester City Council and Plymouth and West Devon Records Office, with many more in the pipeline and due to go live in the coming months. In addition over 40 million parish records from family history societies can be found at findmypast.co.uk in partnership with the Federation of Family History Societies.

www.findmypast.co.uk

http://www.westminster.gov.uk/services/libraries/archives/

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Find My Past, Find My Past, Getting Started, Take It Further Tags: , , , , No Comments »

York Archives

January 27th, 2012 Linda Elliott

Exciting news for those of you who have ancestors from York. The civic archives in the city of York will later this year start to create an online database of the contents of the archives. At the present time the only index to the archive is a hand written one that dates from 1909. Consequently the archive is under used.

http://www.york.gov.uk/archives/

 

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Take It Further Tags: , , , , No Comments »

The Wiener Library

January 21st, 2012 Linda Elliott

The Wiener Library has relocated from Devonshire Street to 29 Russell Square, just round the corner from the British museum.

The library was established by Alfred Wiener, a German Jew who fled Germany in 1933. It is said to be the oldest Holocaust Memorial Institution in the world and contains much of interest for those with Jewish ancestry. Many of the resources are available online.

http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/default.aspx

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Jewish Genealogy, Take It Further Tags: , , , , No Comments »

Royal Navy Museum

January 21st, 2012 Linda Elliott

If you have ancestors who were members of the Royal Navy, whatever their rank – low or high – there is sure to be some great background information on this web site. You might even be tempted to visit the museum and use their archives whilst the family take a tour of HMS Victory and browse in the museum and shop.

http://royalnavalmuseum.org/index.htm

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Merchant Marine & Navy, What Did They Do? Tags: , , , , , , No Comments »

The Thoroton Society

January 19th, 2012 Linda Elliott

clip_image002The previous posting about The Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway led me to this website, The Thoroton Society, which is the leading historical & archaeological society for Nottinghamshire. The aims of the society are to promote knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the history, archaeology and antiquities of Nottinghamshire, and to support local research and conservation.

This looks to be a very interesting & informative website which would be very useful to give a background to Nottinghamshire ancestors. It’s going onto my list of sites to spend time browsing at the weekend.

http://www.thorotonsociety.org.uk/

 

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Societies & Organisations, Take It Further Tags: , , , , , No Comments »

Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway

January 19th, 2012 Linda Elliott

clip_image002Have you got folk from Nottinghamshire ? My husband has so I was interested in this website. The first page introduction says it all really !!….

The Nottinghamshire Heritage Gateway is designed to provide a guide to the heritage resources of the county, and a history of Nottinghamshire featuring the latest research.

The information provided by the Gateway is arranged through a series of research pathways, organised into the following groups: places, people, themes and events. The pathways provide users with a brief overview of a subject area and a list of key resources for further research, arranged by type of source material.

The Gateway is being developed by The Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, and new pathways are added on a regular basis.

 

http://www.nottsheritagegateway.org.uk/

 

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Societies & Organisations, Take It Further Tags: , , No Comments »

Bedfordshire Online

January 10th, 2012 Linda Elliott

Talking to fellow genealogists I have found that a recurring topic is that it is getting harder to keep up with what is available for a specific county. I thought I might do an occasional posting about what I have found for a particular county. I won’t include the GRO Indexes, Census or other country wide material. Of course the moment I post it online it will be incomplete, but hey it’s better than nothing Winking smile

www.ancestry.co.uk

  • Register of Marriage Licences, 1747-1790
  • Wilstead – Parish Registers of Wilstead, 1593-1812
  • Suffolk Green Books, Subsidy Lists, 1309-1332
  • The Orlebar chronicles in Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire, 1553-1733, or, The children of the manor house and their posterity. London: Mitchell, Hughes and Clarke, 1930.
  • The history of a Bedfordshire family : being a history of the Crawleys of Nether Crawley, Stockwood, Thurleigh, and Yelden in the county of Bedford. London: A. Rivers, 1911.
  • The Visitations of Bedfordshire, Annis Domini 1566, 1582, and 1634
  • Pedigree of Acworth of Bedfordshire, etc. : together with some notes on the genealogy.
  • Some records prior to 1700 of White of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Huntingdonshire and a few of other English shires : with incidental records of more than 80 other families, specially indexed. Printed by Allen, Lane & Scott, 1945.

www.findmypast.co.uk

I have to say that trying to find out which parishes are included in the online parish registers on Find My Past is almost impossible !!! Hope someone from FMP reads this and does something about it !!

Bedfordshire Burial Index – 159 parishes, 355,503 entries.

http://www.bfhs.org.uk/

The Bedfordshire Family History Society has CD & fiche of Bedfordshire parish registers and a whole lot more for sale from their website. The county is unique in that all pre 1812 registers have been transcribed.

http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/ArchivesAndRecordOffice

Bedfordshire Gaol Register 1801 – 1879 online.

65% of the holdings are on their online catalogue. The entries are quite detailed so can be very useful without purchasing a copy of the actual document.

Online listing of Bedfordshire pubs with photos & histories.

https://www.familysearch.org/

100% coverage on the IGI

According to my Phillimore Atlas & Index there is 100% coverage for the old IGI, whether that is correct for the new family search I can’t say, but I suspect that many of the parishes will have been taken across.

Hope some of you have found this helpful.

 

Posted in Ancestry.co.uk, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Familysearch.org, Find My Past, Getting Started, Societies & Organisations Tags: , , , No Comments »

Dorset Archives Catalogue

December 31st, 2011 Linda Elliott

clip_image002These days the online catalogues for many of the county archives are very detailed and in some instances give enough information that you don’t require a copy of the original document.

I have just done a search of the Dorset Archives looking for any instances of the surname Lush and came up with quite a few entries that have given me some good leads.

The website also offers an online catalogue of Dorset images, but the link isn’t working. I must make a note and try again after the New Year holidays are over. There are research guides as well for those who are just venturing into genealogy.

http://www.dorsetforyou.com/dorsethistorycentre

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Take It Further Tags: , , , No Comments »

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Database

December 30th, 2011 Linda Elliott

clip_image002This website is a must for those trying to discover the fate of Jewish ancestors who perished during World War 2. There is the Shoah Victims Database, an online photo archive, educational material and much more.

I understand that the website was used in the making of the Stephen Fry WDYTYA episode. Not an easy area of research for genealogists, but one that may help family answer questions that have remained unanswered for several generations.

http://www.yadvashem.org/

 

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Take It Further Tags: , , , , No Comments »

British Library Video

November 3rd, 2011 Linda Elliott

clip_image002Came across this online video about the digitising programme at the British Library. During the video it says that the Newspaper Archive will be going online in the Autumn.

Now I know that some of the newspapers are already online, but this seems to me to be referring to the FindMyPast project. So many exciting projects going on in the Genealogy World that it’s hard to keep up with it all. So much to look at and so little time !

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/europe/2011/10/20111018151013639488.html

Posted in Archives, Libraries & Museums, Archives, Libraries & Museums, Getting Started, Newspapers, Take It Further Tags: , , , , No Comments »
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
Follow me on Twitter!Follow me on Twitter!