Here's a sneak-peak at what's coming over the next year, keep an eye on this page for further announcements!
We released millions of new records last year, along with some exciting new record sets, here's some of the highlights:
NEW Sussex Parish Records
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
TheGenealogist has added over 1.1 million individuals to its parish record collection. Published in association with The Parish Record Transcription Society, this first tranche of records will be followed by more releases in the near future.
This new release covers individual records of:
NEW Criminal Registers MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
We have enlarged our Court & Criminal Records collection so that even more black sheep ancestors can now be searched for and found on our site. With a new release of records you can unearth all sorts of ancestors who came up against the law - whether they were a victim, acquitted, convicted of a minor offence or found guilty of a major crime such as murder.
Uniquely this release gives you the ability to search for victims of the crime (Over 132,000); hunt for people using their name or alias, or look for an offence; and see images of the pages from the books and registers that reveal even more fascinating information about the individual.
As these records cover a vast range of transgressions we are able to find men and women who stole small items such as shirts, potatoes, boots etc. We can also discover people who had married bigamously, forged money, uttered a counterfeit half-crown, burgled, murdered or were accused of other crimes.
Nottingham Parish Records
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
We have extended our UK Parish Records collection with a new release of 650,000 parish records for Nottinghamshire. These fully searchable records reach back to 1633 and cover parishes from this important East Midland county of England, so can be used to find your ancestors' baptisms, marriages and burials.
You can use these transcripts to find the names of ancestors, parents' forenames (in the case of baptisms), father's occupation (where noted), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, and in the case of marriage records the bride's maiden name and the witnesses' names.
Click here to see how the new records feature Lord Byron and his mathematical daughter.
TheGenealogist introduces a new 1921 census substitute
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
With the 1921 census still years away from public release, TheGenealogist has launched one of their most exciting record sets this year. Their new circa 1921 resource covers 23 counties and includes over one million records. These form part of the Trade, Residential & Telephone record sets on TheGenealogist, covering a period currently not served by a census.
The fully transcribed, searchable records released today will allow researchers to:
Read the full press release here.
In our latest article, Nick Thorne investigates these new records and finds many famous names, such as Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridge's department store; Jesse Boot, who was behind the chemist chain that still carries his name; Winnie-the-Pooh's author A. A. Milne; J.M. Barrie, who created the characters of Peter Pan and Wendy; plus the celebrated economist, John Maynard Keynes.
Read Nick Thorne's article - Addressing where they were in 1921.
New Release: Northumberland Parish Records
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
We have just added over 1,363,000 individuals to our Northumberland Parish Record Collection. These fully searchable records, that cover the ancient parishes of the northernmost county of England, make it easier to find your ancestors' baptisms, marriages and burials. Some of the records can take you as far back as 1560.
This release includes 903,314 individuals in Baptisms, 157,329 individuals in Marriages, and 302,378 individuals in Burials.
Within these records you can find Grace Horsley Darling, the famous lighthouse keeper’s daughter who saved a shipwrecked paddle steamer. She was born in 1815 at her grandfather's cottage in Bamburgh in Northumberland. Read more in our press release.
New Release: Doctor & Dentist Records
We have just added over 100,000 records to our occupational collection that will allow you to find ancestors with a medical background. These records list all qualified Doctors/Dentists in the U.K. at the time, including their name, address, date of registration and qualifications.
These new releases include:
New War Memorials Added
We have released a further 104 War Memorials, including 904 images and 11,998 names, bringing our total to over 375,000 individuals listed. This latest release includes memorials from Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Staffordshire, as well as many Boer War Memorials.
New Release: York Colour Tithe Maps & Yorkshire Directories
We have just released the colour tithe maps that cover the City of York and Ainsty to its National Tithe Records collection to compliment the grayscale maps and apportionment books that are already available. In addition, we have added 23 new residential and commercial directory books to our ever expanding collection of Trade, Residential and Telephone Directories to help those with Yorkshire ancestors find their addresses. Here is a list of the new directories:
You can read Nick Thorne's article on finding out more about your Yorkshire ancestors here.
New Passenger Lists go online for the 1920s era
TheGenealogist has just released four and a half million BT27 records for the 1920s. These Outbound Passenger Lists are part of the growing immigration and emigration record sets on TheGenealogist and contain the historical records of passengers who departed by sea from U.K. ports in the years between 1920 and 1929. With the addition of this decade of records, the already strong Immigration, Emigration, Naturalisation and Passenger List resources on TheGenealogist have been significantly expanded.
The fully searchable records released today will allow researchers to:
Those with ancestors who travelled out of Britain will welcome this fascinating new release from TheGenealogist. It adds to their Immigration and Emigration record set which already includes passenger lists from as far back as 1896 and the valuable Naturalisation and Denization records.
In our latest article, Nick Thorne investigates these new records and finds many well known names from the time, including actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr, war poet Siegfried Sassoon, founder of the Boy Scouts Lt General Robert Baden-Powell, Liberal Politican and Prime Minister David Lloyd George and the one time leader of the Suffragette movement Emmeline Pankhurst, among others.
New Release: The Sphere Newspaper
We have expanded our Newspaper and Magazine collection with the release of more editions of The Sphere that cover August 1914 to June 1919.
Using the historical newspapers and magazines resource on TheGenealogist enables researchers to follow current affairs that may have affected or concerned our ancestors at the time. Because the articles were written as events were occurring, they provide contemporary accounts of the world that our ancestors lived in and can furnish us with great insights into opinions of the time. In the case of the First World War years, covered by this release of The Sphere, we can gain information about individuals or read about situations that are similar to ones that our ancestors may have found themselves in.
The Sphere was an illustrated paper founded by Clement Shorter (1857-1926), who was also responsible for establishing the Tatler, and it covered general news stories from the UK and around the world.
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New War Memorials Added We have just added 116 new War Memorials containing 10,795 names. Included in this batch are a number of Boer War memorials as well as those for the First World War. With this addition, the total number of memorials on TheGenealogist has now reached 1,540 with 363,838 names.
Over 100,000 new Parish Records
We have added over 100,000 individuals to our Parish Record Transcripts for Worcestershire in partnership with Malvern Family History Society. This expands our coverage and brings the total to over 1.8 million individuals for Worcestershire.
New Poll Books & Electoral Registers
The new records cover 35 different registers of people who were entitled to vote in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and other constituencies situated in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and New Westminster in Canada. They are taken from the official lists produced to record who was entitled to vote in the various parliamentary elections. These records have been added to our Poll and Electoral Roll collection which covers millions of records.
Also being released is The Roll of Mayors of the Borough and Lord Mayors of the City of Leicester, which can take the researcher all the way back to ancient times! It records the names of men holding that office from the 10th year of the reign of King John in 1209, all through history to 1935.
You can read our latest article on the evolution of parliament and election eligibility here.
New British in India Collection
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
The TV series 'Indian Summers' starring Julie Walters has created an interest in India under British rule. This new record set reveals information about those ancestors that lived in the subcontinent, their lifestyle and the communities that they lived in.
Millions of British people went out to India in the past and so many family historians will have an ancestor that made the journey. For some, India would turn out to be their last resting place and among their ranks were merchants, soldiers, sailors, civil servants, missionaries and their families.
This Release Includes:
To browse the Image Archive for relevant photographs, search for the tags 'India' and more specifically 'Hill Station' for pictures like the one above.
The release of The British in India Collection on TheGenealogist now allows family historians to find ancestors who went out to British India in a very broad-ranging set of resources ranging from the early 1800s up to the 1920s.
Hampshire Parish Records (Bishop's Transcripts)
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
With the addition of over 886,000 individuals, this brings our total number of records for Hampshire to over 3.1 Million with coverage of:
Durham Parish Records
MAJOR NEW RELEASE:
With the addition of nearly 1.7 million individuals, this brings our total number of records to over 1.8 Million with coverage of:
New Release: London Educational Records
We have just released a batch of London school and university records to join our ever growing educational collection.
Researchers can use this new data to find ancestors who attended or taught at a variety of Educational establishments within London between 1831 and 1927.
The list of records included in this release are:
You can read more about the release, including an example from the records here.
New Release: Middlesex Colour Tithe Maps
TheGenealogist has released the Colour Tithe Maps for Middlesex. These join the grayscale maps of the National Tithe records already available on TheGenealogist. This latest issue covers parishes in the County of Middlesex and will allow researchers to view the plots where their ancestors may have owned or occupied land at the time of the survey which took place at the start of Victoria's reign.
The searchable schedules, or apportionment books, contain detailed information on land use and these are linked to the maps on TheGenealogist. Clicking through from the transcript to a map will jump straight to the plot for an individual and can reveal buildings, fields, houses, rivers, lakes, woods and also cover villages, towns and cities.
New Release: Quarter Session rolls and books
This is a new collection of Quarter Session rolls and books from Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Surrey and Middlesex covering dates from as far back as the 16th century and up to, in some cases, the Victorian period.
The Quarter Session records were produced by local courts traditionally held at four set times each year. Being made up of two or more justices of the peace and presided over by a chairman, they sat with a jury at Epiphany (in January), Easter (March/April), Midsummer (June/July) and then at Michaelmas (September/October).
Find the names of people before the courts that include those indicted, witnesses, as well as the names of the Justices of the Peace and the Clerks. Some of the earliest records in this release reach as far back as 1549 for Middlesex and 1591 in Worcester
Police Letter Books
TheGenealogist has just launched a new collection of Police Letter Books for Hampshire. This is an intriguing mixture of promotions, retirements, movements, and other observations about Police officers in this county from 1891 to 1911. In amongst its pages, you will be able to trace the career of your Hampshire police ancestors as they rise, or even fall.
These records reveal names and collar numbers of officers promoted, reduced in rank or dismissed from the force for committing various acts of misconduct. The misdemeanors often seem to involve alcohol, ranging from accepting a glass of beer to being drunk on duty. For those more competent officers, who were commended for their actions in the pages of these documents, you can read the actions that had been seen as deserving of inclusion in the Letter Books.
Colour Tithe Maps for Northumberland
We have just released the Colour Tithe Maps for Northumberland. These maps join the previously released greyscale maps for the majority of the country that have been already published.
The searchable schedules, or apportionment books, contain detailed information on land use and these are linked to the maps on TheGenealogist. Clicking through from the transcript to a map will jump straight to the plot for an individual and can reveal buildings, fields, houses, rivers, lakes, woods and also cover villages, towns and cities.
Over 282,000 individuals added to our Parish Record Collection
We have added over 282,000 individuals to our extensive Parish Record collection. With records from Essex, Cumberland and Norfolk, making it easier to find your ancestors' baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records covering ancient parishes. Some of the records go back as far as 1672.
We are all aware that parish records will give us those all important dates and names for our ancestors - but in some cases they can also reveal interesting stories as well. When a vicar or parish clerk feels that the person that they are entering into the register needs an extra explanation, other than just the date and the name of the person, then some fascinating historical accounts can emerge for researchers to read. Click here to read our article on The Fat Man of Maldon.
Over 43,000 New War Memorial Records Added
The new release of War Memorial Records mean there are now over 350,000 searchable records. This latest release includes war memorials from London, along with further English counties including Cumbria, Berkshire, Warwickshire and Suffolk. The collection also stretches across the globe to encompass new War Memorials situated in Perth, Australia and the Province of Saskatchewan in Canada. Fully searchable by name, researchers can read transcriptions and see images of the dedications that commemorate soldiers who have fallen in the Boer War, WW1 and various other conflicts.
In amongst these newly published War Memorial Records are those for St John's church in Bassenthwaite, Cumbria. This is a fascinating WW1 roll with men who died or served including information such as that for Louis Willis Bell who died at Rouen as a result of poison gas. Another notable entry is that for Isaac Hall. This soldier enlisted in January 1915 in 7th Border Regiment and was discharged on the 21 March 1917 because of wounds resulting in the loss of his left leg.
The Navy & Army Illustrated
The Navy and Army Illustrated which covers over 280 issues from 1895 to 1901 giving approximately 6,700 pages of lavishly illustrated information on all aspects of news relating to the fighting forces of Britain and its Empire.
We have added over 60,000 individuals to our Baptism Transcripts for Worcestershire in partnership with Malvern Family History Society, expanding our coverage and bringing the total to over 2 million individuals. With years ranging from 1544-1891
Click Here to view the coverage of our Parish Record Transcripts
Visit our featured article section for fascinating stories and the latest news from the world of genealogy.
New Sussex Parish Records Reveal a Grisly End
15th September 2017
Lisa Hammond
6th September 2017
Noel Clarke
30th August 2017
Criminal Records discover black sheep ancestors
22nd August 2017
London Family History Fair
24th September 2017
10:00 - 16:30
WSFHS Open Day & Family History Fair
4th November 2017
10:00 - 16:30
Visit the press releases section for the official write-up of all our news.
