Norfolk parish records to go online

Data website TheGenealogist and the Norfolk Record Office have announced that they have signed an agreement to make Norfolk parish and other historical records available online for the first time. The registers of baptisms, marriages, burials and banns of marriage feature the majority of the parishes in Norfolk.

On release the searchable transcripts will be linked to original images of baptism, marriage and burial records from the parish registers of this East Anglian county. Some of the surviving records date from as far back as the early 1500s.

These vital records will allow family history researchers from all over the world to search for their Norfolk ancestors online for the first time.

Famous people that can be found in these records include:

• Samuel Lincoln, the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Abraham Lincoln, 18th President of the United States of America. He can be discovered in the baptismal records of St Andrew, Hingham in Norfolk for 24 August 1622. At some point his entry has been highlighted with a star.
• Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson, who lost his life at the Battle of Trafalgar. This impoverished clergyman’s son can be discovered in the register for Burnham Thorpe in 1758. There his father, as rector of the parish, would have officiated at all the baptisms that year in this church with his name appearing at the bottom of the page.

Viewing an image of the actual parish register reveals that the young Horatio Nelson was firstly baptised privately in October 1758, just a week after being born and then given a second ‘public baptism’ in the middle of November. This practice was carried out for sickly babies who were not expected to survive and begs the question of how different British history would have been had he died as an infant. Fascinatingly, by looking at the actual image of the page there are some additions to his entry that have been penned in the margin years later. These notes, reputedly to be by his brother the Rev William Nelson, 1st Earl Nelson, celebrated the honours that his brother received in his adult life. He ends it with the latin quote “caetera enarret fama” which translates as “others recount the story”.

In addition to those from the Diocese of Norwich, the coverage includes some Suffolk parishes in and near Lowestoft that fall into the deanery of Lothingland, plus various parishes from the deanery of Fincham and Feltwell, that part of the Diocese of Ely which covers south-west Norfolk.

Nigel Bayley, managing director of TheGenealogist commented: With this collection you will be able to easily search Norfolk records online for the first time. From the results a click will allow you to view high quality digital images of the original documents. Joining our already extensive Parish Record collection on TheGenealogist, this release will be eagerly anticipated by family and local historians with links to Norfolk.

Gary Tuson, County Archivist at The Norfolk Record Office said: The Norfolk Record Office is pleased to be working with TheGenealogist, a commercial company helping to make these important records available to a worldwide audience.

Synagogue seatholder records available at TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist has released online 99,500 records of London synagogue seat-holders spanning the years from 1920 to 1939.

Covering records from 18 synagogues around London along with many connected guilds, societies and charities etc, the records often contain useful information such as names of gentlemen eligible for office; life members of the council; women who were seatholders in their own right; and seatholders who were not eligible to vote.

The newly digitised records are fully searchable by name, keyword, synagogue and address. They have been extracted from various editions of Seatholders for Synagogues in London.

Those with Jewish ancestors from London will welcome this fascinating new release. Revealing details of positions held by forebears, the records will enable researchers to track ancestors who became wardens, council members, or served on committees of their synagogue, as well as seatholders in synagogues from around the capital city.

The records include some synagogues that are no longer in existence; for example the Great Synagogue which once stood at Duke’s Place and was destroyed in the Blitz.

Public ballot for Somme tickets Tickets

Tickets for the July 2016 Thiepval Memorial event in France will be available through a public ballot opening later this year.

The public will be invited to the Thiepval Memorial in France on 1 July 2016 to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, the Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has announced.

The joint Anglo-French commemoration of the Battle of the Somme is expected to attract great public interest, so tickets will be made available for the event. The 8,000 tickets will be allocated in pairs, free of charge, through a public online ballot. The ballot will be open to residents of the UK, France and Ireland on 28 September 2015. More details can be found on the Somme 2016 Ballot website at www.Somme2016.org.

The Somme was one of the bloodiest battles of World War One, resulting in over one million casualties. A commemorative event is held at the Thiepval Memorial every year, but the centenary event in 2016 will be on a larger scale, with some 10,000 people attending.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said: “The tragic events at the Battle of the Somme left a deep mark on a huge scale – nearly everyone in the UK will have an ancestor who fought or died at the Somme. It’s important that people across the UK have the chance to remember and honour these brave soldiers.

The centenary event will be an opportunity to not only pay tribute to those that sacrificed so much but to ensure that their legacy continues for generations. I am grateful to our French partners for working with us to commemorate the extensive loss on all sides on what will be an incredibly important and deeply moving event.

The event will include representatives from the battle’s combatant nations, organisations such as The Royal British Legion, and members of the public. Plans are being made to broadcast the ceremony live to large screens in towns across the Somme region and the UK. There will also be a wide programme of events taking place in the UK. Events will also take place in France to markthe 141 days of the battle.

The Culture Secretary also announced a further £4 million in National Lottery funding through the Heritage Lottery Fund’s First World War: then and now programme so communities can explore, conserve and share local heritage of the entire First World War. This new money will help even more people get involved and explore the inspirational stories of the conflict including those surrounding the Battle of the Somme.

15 million Welsh newspaper articles now online

Fifteen million articles from more than 120 newspaper titles published in Wales between 1804 and 1919 are now available to read on the National Library of Wales’ new-look Welsh Newspapers Online website.

Key events in Welsh history, from the Chartist uprising of 1839 to the 1904-1905 Methodist Revival, are among the stories covered during this period; the progress of World War One is also reported in depth. Details of everyday life are documented, from church services and Whitsun teas to sporting fixtures, while cultural events such as the Eisteddfod are covered in detail.

First launched in 2013, the free website, which includes both Welsh and English-language publications, has recently been updated with an extra 400,000 pages, including many new titles.

The website – newspapers.library.wales – has an updated look and several new features. Users can browse by image such as cartoons, graphs, maps or photographs and can link articles to Wikipedia. The website also adapts to the size of the screen being used, whether a computer, tablet or mobile phone.

The ‘Boolean’ search method is now available, which is the ability to undertake a detailed search using the words ‘and’, ‘or’ or ‘not’ along with thesubject. For the first time, too, it’s possible to limit searches to the language of the publication; it is also possible to search specific years.

The website is continually being developed and the Library welcomes all feedback. Users can make comments using the ‘Contact us’ link on the website. Dr Dafydd Tudur, Digital Access Manager at the National Library of Wales, said: “A wealth of detail about life in all corners of Wales over a period of a century and more is available on this website, which is an easy-to-use and free resource.

It’s straightforward to find information by searching for a name, place or subject and our hope is that this resource will be of great educational, economic and social benefit to Wales.