Genealogy

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1911 Census now available for all of England and Wales

Findmypast released all of Wales on 9th June after completing all English counties on the 7th April. The final parts covering the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark and the Royal Navy and Overseas Military Establishments were released on June 18th. You can get to the 1911 census site here. There are more details here including detailed coverage information.

Irish 1911 Census updates

Returns for Donegal, Cork, Galway, Wexford and King’s County (Offaly) have recently been added to the National Archives of Ireland site in addition to those for Antrim, Down, Dublin and Kerry that were previously available. Searching and viewing the results and the original census forms is completely free.

Findmypast 1851 Census for Lancashire

Findmypast has added Lancashire the the counties available to search in the 1851 census, based on a new transcription from a new set of images. They are also promising soon transcriptions for about 160,000 people in the Manchester, Chorlton, Salford, Oldham and Ashton-Under-Lyne registration districts where the records were water damaged many years ago. The work has involved painstaking conservation and transcription to try and recover information from the fragile and badly damaged documents. You can find more information here.

FreeBMD, FreeCEN and FreeReg Latest Updates

The FreeBMD site was updated on 23rd May with now over 168 million distinct records, all completely free to search. Meanwhile FreeCEN updated their database on 16th May with entries for over 14.7 million individuals now available for free while FreeREG added more records to their database on 15th May with now just under 8 million records available to search, that's over 4.3 million baptisms, over 1.3 million marriages and just under 2.3 million burials, again all for free.

British Newspapers from 1800-1900 now online

Gales have now put online a selection of British Newspapers from 1800-1900 to go with their existing (London) Times Digital Archive (which covers every edition from 1785 to 1985). The new collection covering 49 local and national titles in association with the British Library is available here but many libraries and universities offer free access to their members, in many cases from home, for example Surrey libraries and Calderdale libraries.
Failing that you can search for free but have to pay-per-view to see the detail - more information including free access to some pages are on the Gale website.

London Metropolitan Archives records available on Ancestry

For some time, Ancestry have been working with the LMA - London Metropolitan Archives - to make their vast collection of records available online. When complete you will be able to search parish records - births, marriages and deaths - wills, school records, land deeds, workhouse records, transportation records and more.
The first part of these has now gone online covering workhouse records - Board of Guardians Deaths and Burials 1834-1906 and Baptisms 1834-1934, that's about 250,000 records now with the full 77 million to be progressively released between now and 2011. You can see the details on the Ancestry site here - if you're not a subscriber, take advantage of Ancestry's 14 day free trial offer to have a look.

Searchable BMD Birth Indexes from Ancestry

Ancestry have added searchable BMD Birth Indexes for 1916-1983 for England and Wales, in addition to the 1984-2005 they already had. Your first point of call should be the FreeBMD site (currently up to the 1930s with some gaps) but if they don't have the records you are after, you can take advantage of Ancestry's 14 day free trial

1911 Census Now Available

After a long wait (well it seemed long), findmypast officially released the 1911 census online on 13th January 2009. Searching is free but, initially at least, you can only view the transcript of a household or the original schedule using pay per view credits. You can use the same credits as are used and sold on the main findmypast site. You can get to the 1911 census site here. There are more details here including coverage (a few counties of England and all of Wales are not yet online).

Findmypast Subscription Discount

Findmypast are offering 5% off their subscription rates with a special promotional code. Go to their site by clicking here and use promotional code NDX24SUB when you take out a subscription. You enter the code when you get to the page where you choose your subscription type.

Great Ormond Street Victorian records online

The Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street, England’s first in-patient children’s hospital, has made available a searchable database of patient admission records from the Hospital’s first in-patient in 1852 to the last admission in 1914. You can access it here.

FreeBMD Milestone

A big milestone for the FreeBMD team - after the update on 14th September, over 200 million records have been transcribed, over 155 million distinct records with 45 million double transcribed to check accuracy, all completely free to search.

Board of Trade Passenger Lists

Board of Trade Passenger Lists for the period up to 1960 have been added to those previously available for 1890-1929 with details of names of people leaving ports in the United Kingdom and Ireland for final destinations outside Europe and the Mediterranean, can now be searched on-line. The AncestorsOnBoard website can be searched free of charge by name but you have to pay to download images and information from a passenger list. You don't have to pay if you access the site from The National Archives in Kew. AncestorsOnBoard is part of findmypast.com.

National Archives Lectures available for download

The National Archives have made available over 100 lectures on line. They are in mp3 format which means you can either listen on your computer or on a MP3 player such as an iPod. The full list of lectures is here.

The Guardian Family History Guide

The Guardian published a good guide to family history in April 2007 and have backed it up with an online guide.

The 1931 Census for England and Wales

More information here on what actually happened to the 1931 census and how all the schedules were lost.

London Gazette Archives available

The London Gazette site with a full name search from 1752 is now up and working - I turned up two of my ancestors in the 1840s in debtor's prison (not sure I really wanted to find that but it all helps fill in my family history, good and bad).