A search using the keyword Dorset on this website brings up lots of info of use to family historians. Sadly only vol. 2 of the Victoria County History of Dorset is available, but I’m sure the volume with the individual parishes will get online eventually. Plenty here to keep you busy whilst you wait!!

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/search.aspx?query1=Dorset

Excellent website with amongst other items a growing database available to researchers.

 http://www.evacuees.org.uk/

   Here is the Bedfordshire page of the Genweb project. Always worth having a look at the genweb page for your county.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engbdf/

   This website highlights research into women’s history. There is a database of where collections of such histories might be found in UK archives, museums & libraries. Also there is a guide to sources that may be found overseas. The website is maintained by the The Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University. Might be just the place to start your search for your female ancestors.

http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/genesis/

   This website is located under the National Trust banner, it is based on a project undertaken by University College London investigating the distribution of surnames in Great Britain, both current and historic. There are plans for an international version of the database, but no time for it’s completion has been given.

I’ve found this site unexpectedly helpful in given me clues on where to look next.

http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/

       This website is all about the research process something that confronts genealogists every time they embark on finding something out. I strongly recommend that you download the Genealogical Research Process Map and use it in your research. It is so simple when you see it laid out clearly, but not so simple when you are in the middle of trying to prove or disprove some nugget of ancestral information! Mark Tucker has certainly given a gift to the family historian.

http://www.thinkgenealogy.com/map/

This website is a digital archive project from the European Commission. I understand that when first launched it crashed within hours, but it is now back and able to withstand the onslaught of millions of hits per hour!

I gather the idea is that archives across the European Union contribute images to be included on the website therefore making them more easily accessible to the general public. Personally I found the website confusing I put in a search for London and came across some interesting old photographs, but when I clicked on them the images, which were quite small, couldn’t be enlarged so it was hard to view them properly.

I then organised my search by provider and chose British Library and the first few pages were sound recordings of interviews. I click on one at random and it told me that should I wish to I could hear Sophie born 1989 tell me what she and her friends did in their spare time. This seems rather a waste of an opportunity to display some of the best images from leading UK archives. I’m not saying that oral interviews such as that of Sophie aren’t important, but just that they aren’t likely to be as popular and useful as other documents and recordings that the British Library holds. Perhaps it’s just me and I have not been using the site in the best way, I’m be interested to heard what others think. Take a look and see what you think.

http://www.europeana.eu/portal/

Origins.net have just put the Irish Electoral registers 1832 – 1838 online. The dataset contains the names of 70,000 voters and includes their address, occupations and the reason for their eligibility to vote.

On their website is this description of the registers.

In Ireland during this period the electorate consisted of £10 freeholders and leaseholders (ie those owning or leasing property with an annual value of at least £10), £20 leaseholders and freeholders, £50 freeholders, plus, in towns, cities and boroughs, freemen or paid-up members of a trade guild.

The usefulness of these lists of the electorate, especially for the towns and cities in Ireland, cannot be over-emphasised. Only a handful of postal and/or street directories exists for that period for the majority of the towns and villages of Ireland, other than Dublin and Belfast, so the list of voters provided by the Select Committee greatly adds to the available material on urban residents.

Origins is a subscription based website so you will have to pay see this dataset either by purchasing a monthly subscription £8.95 or a 72 hour subs for £4.50

http://www.origins.net/

  This site consists of hundreds of databases, most seem to be searchable, some are free others you have to join and pay a subscription to access. However 40 pounds a year is cheaper than a flight to Ireland if you live far away from the Emerald Isle. There are several membership options.

http://www.irishfamilyresearch.co.uk/

Can recommend Ian Waller the researcher who is the owner of Link Line Research. He recently obtain a whole sheaf of Pottinger wills for me and a very reasonable cost. He is a very experienced genealogist who is the author of the excellent book “My Ancestor was an Ag Lab”.

http://www.familyhistoryresearch-bedfordshire.com/