Great Britain
FreeBMD A free-to-search volunteer project to transcribe the English and Welsh civil registration indexes, FreeBMD covers nearly 266 million records. All years are not yet available, but more transcriptions are added regularly.
Order birth, marriage and death civil registration certificates online for mail delivery for about $12, including postage. Under a pilot program, you can also order a birth or death certificate as a PDF download for about $8.
This site has links to free websites with church parish registers from the United Kingdom and Ireland. For example, a search on England, Norfolk County, and the parish of Upwell produces links to several sites, including an index to baptisms, marriages and burials on the FreeReg website.
You can search transcriptions of over 2.7 million marriage records from English and Welsh church parish registers before 1837, many of which are not indexed anywhere else.
This excellent guide to English genealogy from Brigham Young University suggests search strategies and describes key records with links to related websites. Many of the books mentioned are available online. Find digitized versions in the FamilySearch Catalog by searching the online library catalog WorldCat or by entering the title in your web browser.
Made up of articles contributed by the public, the Research Wiki has especially useful guides to family history research in England and Wales. Start by searching on England or Wales. Explore the links to online records, lessons, guides to key records and research in specific counties. Each county page has a research guide, plus links to a page for each parish within the county. For example, the page for Wiggenhall St. Mary Magdalen, Norfolk Genealogy describes the major resources for that parish and it has links to indexes and images of online parish records.
This website provides extensive information on genealogy resources for the United Kingdom and Ireland. On the home page, click on England, Wales or another region. You’ll find links to articles on searching various record types and guides to research in each county. Each county page, in turn, has a link to a page for each town and parish within the county. The home page also has links to family history societies, and the church database can pinpoint a parish on a map or produce a list of nearby parishes. Once you find your ancestors in one parish, work outward in the surrounding parishes to find other references to the family.
Search for English and Welsh wills and probate records from 1858 to the present. (Note that there’s a separate area to search wills of soldiers who died while in the armed forces.) You can search on only one year at a time, so it’s better to consult indexes on the genealogy megasites such as FamilySearch first. Download a copy for about $13.
Search records of nearly 200,000 trials held at London’s central criminal court from 1674 to 1913. I found a guilty verdict against George Crume for “stealing seventy-six pounds of pork, two bottles of rum, and two bags of plums” in 1866.
This site describes almost 500,000 buildings of special architectural or historical interest in England, Scotland and Wales. That includes most buildings built before 1840 and some later. A search for Llwynfilly, the farm my ancestor Samuel Jones leased in 1788 in the parish of Llanigon, Breconshire, Wales, produces a detailed description of the farmhouse. It includes its history and construction, plus a map and an aerial view.
Start your search here for information on the parishes where your ancestors lived. . You can also follow the links to the FamilySearch Catalog, Historical Records and Research Wiki for even more information on the parish.
To find a place on a map, click Launch OS Maps and close the welcome message. Enter a place name in Search for Location and select the correct place from the suggestions.
A great online map of Great Britain, Streetmap displays beautiful Landranger maps and even lets you search for a house or farm name.
Most Welsh family history societies cover a county created in 1974. This site will point you to the ones you need: just click Member Societies.
This organization promotes high standards for professional genealogists and historical researchers in England and Wales. You can find a researcher by specialty or location. The UK National Archives also has a list of independent researchers. Click on Help with Your Research > Pay for Research > Independent Researchers.
This site has a directory of more than 180 member societies in England, Wales and Ireland.
This vendor serves as a storefront for many British family history societies, making it easy to pay for a society membership, publications on CD or DVD and digital downloads.
You can join a family history society and buy UK parish registers on CD.
The British Library has digitized more than 22 million newspaper pages dating back to the 1700s from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. They’re also available through The British Library’s partner, Findmypast.com. More newspapers are added regularly.
The British government has taken censuses every 10 years since 1801, except for 1941. The 1841 census was the first to list every person by name and the 1911 census is the most recent open to the public. Starting in 1851, the census lists each person’s parish of birth. That’s helpful for locating the origins of people born before civil registration began in 1837. UK Census Online volunteers have transcribed more than 32 million names in the census records of England, Scotland and Wales from 1841 to 1891.
Military records provide biographical details of soldiers and their families, in addition to information about military service. This subscription site has more than 10 million British military records from the 18th century to the present, including 2 million records not available elsewhere online. The site adds about 250,000 new records each month.
Search all three editions of The Gazette, the official government newspaper published in London, Edinburgh and Belfast. Dating back to 1665, it includes useful information for family history research, such as estate notices, bankruptcies, military appointments, name changes and naturalizations.
This particular link provides information on research before the modern period in Britain - Medieval, Renaisance, Civil War era, etc. There are many more locations within the National Archives that cover all areas of research.
This Database contains records of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369 and 1453
This site has a wealth of information and suggestions on where to search for information on your medieval ancestor.