Huge Newspaper Digitisation Project Announced by FindMyPast.co.ukRoyal Navy records online at TNA Over 600,000 records for ratings who joined the Royal Navy between 1853-1923 are now available at the National Archives website. It's free to search, and it will cost you just £3.50 to download a record. You might be surprised what you discover - I certainly was…… Lost Cousins Newsletter 30 March 2010-03-21Chelsea pensioners arrive at findmypast The phrase 'Chelsea pensioner' conjures up an image of a very old soldier in a long red coat - but in fact the vast majority of Chelsea pensioners never went to Chelsea and never wore the uniform. For them the Royal Hospital was simply the place that administered their pension. Covering a period of over 150 years, the WO97 series held at the National Archives include service records for 901,000 soldiers who served in the British Army and received a pension between 1760-1913. The first tranche to go online at findmypast, includes 252,000 records for the period 1883-1900. I quickly found the records for my great-great uncle, even though when he signed up in 1880 he omitted his middle name, lied about his age, and gave his birthplace simply as "London, Middlesex". The files don't simply record where soldiers served and when they were promoted - they are also full of intimate personal details: I now know that my great-great uncle was only 5ft 7in tall with a chest measurement of under 34 inches, and had brown eyes, brown hair, and 3 marks on his left forearm. I won't go into his medical history except to say that the disease must have cleared up before his marriage, because his wife bore him 11 children.
The aFiled under Newsnnouncement by FindMyPast.co.uk of a digitisation project between themselves and the British Library which houses 300 years of British newspapers can only be good news for all historians … Nearly 40 million British newspaper pages covering three and a half centuries will be made available to search online over the next 10 years thanks to a huge new digitisation project. The newspapers, which can currently only be viewed at the British Library in Colindale, will be accessible online as the result of a new partnership deal with web publishing company brightsolid (the parent company of FindMyPast.co.uk). At least four million pages are expected to be available to search online within the next two years. The collection will focus on particular time periods, including the census years between 1841 and 1911, and key events such as the Crimean War. Visitors will be able to browse the newspapers through a paid website or through brightsolid’s family history sites, including FindMyPast.co.uk. Access to the new documents at the British Library’s London site will remain free of charge.
“Historic newspapers are an invaluable resource for historians, researchers, genealogists, students and many others, bringing past events and people to life with great immediacy and in rich detail,” says the library’s Chief Executive Dame Lynne Brindley. “Mass digitisation unlocks the riches of our newspaper collections by making them available to users across the UK and around the world.” YORKSHIRE ANCESTORS - Try some of these books which have been digitised and can be found on the Internet Archive... Rotherham, West Riding, Volume 1, 1540-1837 http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/index.html;
DECEASED ONLINE Deceased Online is the first central database of statutory burial and cremation registers for the UK and Republic of Ireland - a unique resource for family history researchers and professional genealogists. Searching is free, and can be restricted as required to country, region, county, or individual burial authority or crematorium. However, once you find a record of possible interest, you do have to pay a fee to read all the details. SUSSEX ONLINE PARISH CLERK WEBSITE The Sussex Online Parish Clerks site has much free information is available. Not all parishes are covered yet but there is still a lot of information on line for this area, it has births, burials, marriages and even some wills have been transcribed.
READING OLD HANDWRITING This Scottish website provides a tutorial in reading old records from 15, 16, 17 and 18 centuries. http://www.scottishhandwriting.com/ and this is a similar English site http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/Palaeography/ The registers of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, London (1889) THE REGISTERS OF ST BOTOLPH, BISHOPSGATE, LONDON ( 1889) Another useful publication from the Internet Archive website, containing digitised copies for books from many sources...this one contains baptisms, marriages and burials for St Botolph, Bishopsgate, London. http://www.archive.org/details/registersstboto00hallgoog I. Marriages (1558-1753) Baptisms (1558-1628) Burials (1558-1628)--II. Burials (1628-1725)--III. Baptisms (1628-1690)
Welsh parish register found after 75 years
The chequered history of tartans
Surnames weren't used in the Scottish Highlands until the 17th century, and whilst at that point many clan members adopted the name of the chief, that didn't always happen: sometimes sub-groups would use a different surname, retaining a separate identity whilst remaining under the protection of the chief. To complicate matters still further, the same surname could be held by members of different clans - and that's one reason why the links between surnames and tartans are so tenous. Another is that modern designs for tartans have largely been derived from a book (Vestiarium Scoticum) that is generally regarded to have been a 19th century forgery by two brothers who falsely claimed descent from Bonnie Prince Charlie. Missing from the census? WW1 service records complete - at last Newsletter - December 15, 2009 Missing sections of the 1851 Census Scott also mentioned that he'd found relatives on the 1851 Census at findmypast who were missing from the Ancestry version - not because of a bad transcription, but because the records for that district were completely missing. Some time ago findmypast announced that they were adding 160,000 individuals whose records were previously omitted from all published versions of the 1851 Census, because the original pages had been badly damaged CanadianHeadstones.com Newsletter - January 2, 2010 Did your ancestors elope? Marriage records for more than 20,000 people who married at Gretna Green between 1794-1895 are now available at Ancestry. Wartime rationing in the UK
Hundreds of registers for the old City of Westminster, which includes the civil parishes of St Anne Soho, St Clement Danes, St George Hanover Square, St James Piccadilly, St Margaret and St John Westminster, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St Mary-le-Strand, and St Paul Covent Garden are held not at the London Metropolitan Archives, but at the Westminster City Archives - and so aren't included in the LMA collection at Ancestry. BMD records for 2007-08 My spies tell me that there's a chance that these registers may start appearing online in 2011. In the meantime there's a list of the Westminster City Archives holdings here (and some of the records are indexed in the IGI). Even if the records you're seeking are held at the London Metropolitan Archives, it can be difficult to find them - because of the way that records are filed under the names of the modern boroughs. Fortunately there's an invaluable index on the London Generations website which relates places and parishes to the relevant borough. You'll find this invaluable if you're searching at Ancestry - and another handy guide to London is the facsimile of the 1938 London A-Z, which shows the city and its environs before they were ravaged by 6 years of war. Two final tips: when searching for records in London, don't forget that the parts of London south of the River Thames were not in Middlesex, but Surrey or Kent; also, findmypast have just added more London and Middlesex parish and probate records - click here for more details. Newsletter - January 18, 2010
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