Over 500,000 tithe plots added to Map Explorer

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer, the powerful mapping tool for family historians, has been boosted by the addition of four new counties of georeferenced tithe maps into the record set layer.

Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can now view the Victorian tithe maps linked to apportionment records for Cornwall, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Worcestershire. These historic maps are overlaid on the modern and historical maps of the base and middle layers. This enables the user to see the land as it appeared through time.

Tithe records allow researchers to find land that was both owned or occupied by ancestors in the period 1837 to 1850s, with some additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. This means that it was not just the wealthy landowners who are recorded in the tithe records but also those tenants who may have farmed a small plot or lived in a cottage.

Map Explorer includes various years of georeferenced Ordnance Survey maps, current road and satellite view maps and with the additional tithe record layer researchers can see how their ancestors’ environment had changed over the decades. When used in conjunction with other records, such as the census, the family history researcher can gain a fascinating insight into their forebears’ story.

This release adds 784 maps across the four counties, with a total of 547,976 new tithe plot pins on Map Explorer; more than 4.5m viewable records are now indicated by pins Pins on this resource.

Read the feature article ‘Keeping it in the Family – The Tale of Land’s End ’.

50,000 new records for Ealing

TheGenealogist has released 52,429 records for the Borough of Ealing in the west of London for the period just prior to the First World War. This area consists of the seven major towns of Acton, Ealing, Greenford, Hanwell, Northolt, Perivale and Southall as well as the area of Hayes, Norwood and part of Hammersmith.

Ealing was once in the county of Middlesex and because it was halfway between city and country, with pleasant greenery, it was often referred to as the ‘Queen of the Suburbs’.

The records can be quite revealing for family historians as they give details of houses and other buildings owned in the area by our ancestors at a time when the government surveyed Ealing in the period between 1910-1915.

To make it easier to understand how areas may have changed over the years TheGenealogist has also plotted each property onto large scale contemporary Ordnance Survey Maps which are available on its versatile Map Explorer. This allows users to switch between modern and historical maps so that a researcher is able to see any changes that have taken place in the surrounding neighbourhood with the passing of time.

These land tax records, when used in conjunction with other records on TheGenealogist such as census, street directories etc can build a better picture of the environment in which your ancestors worked, lived or played.

Family history researchers can use these records to:

• Search for a person by name
• Search by county, parish and street
• Discover descriptions and values of the houses occupied by an ancestor
• Zoom down on the map to show the individual properties as they were in the 1910s
• Use the controls to reveal a modern street map or satellite view underlay.