Welcome to the Family History Social

TheGenealogist’s latest release of transcripts of RAF ORBs provide the most complete collection of indexed AIR 27 records

TheGenealogist has today released over 4.2 million transcripts for its RAF Operations Record Books (ORBs), fully searchable by Name, Rank, Aircraft, Squadron, and Date plus many other fields, making it simpler to find your air force ancestors. 

TheGenealogist uniquely allows you to search the period 1911-1963. With over 11 million records online, this is the largest collection of searchable AIR 27 records making it the best place to find details about your RAF ancestors. 

Handley Page Hampdens taking off in formation at RAF Waddington

TheGenealogist’s significant transcription effort has been aimed at providing detailed indexes which cover 1911 to 1963. 

Mark Bayley, Head of Content at TheGenealogist said: “We are delighted to be releasing such a large number of AIR 27 ORBs, making TheGenealogist the most comprehensive site for AIR 27 records online.” 

The ORBs on TheGenealogist include not only the journal-like day to day entries recorded on Form 540 in which you can find RAF personnel mentioned, but also all of the appendices that go along with these documents, giving many statistical details as well as “Secret Orders”.

Some feedback TheGenealogist has received:

“One of your best. To be able to follow the day to day activities of individuals down to the hours the planes take off and land is amazing. I look forward to the rest of this data set.”

“A 2 minute search brought up 2 years of operations logs for my Father, who was a pilot in 123 Squadron stationed in North Africa, India & Burma. They are full of amazing information. Everything from a near miss when a Japanese machine gun bullet ‘entered his cockpit’, what films they watched & complaints about the food. Just wonderful.”

“Just to say a big THANK YOU for giving my family access to records of my late Uncle Douglas Thom's operations in 90 Squadron Bomber Command in 1944. We have been very frustrated that his log books seem to have "disappeared" when his home in mid Wales was cleared. Now at least we have a time-line of his sorties and more information to add to his "not often spoken about" story. I will be passing what you have on him to my cousin, his son Doug, in Canada.”

Learn more about RAF records and read TheGenealogist’s free articles here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/raf/ 

This collection is provided in association with The National Archives. 

These records and many more are available to Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist.co.uk

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

TheGenealogist has released records of 72,663 individuals so that researchers will be able to discover useful details about ancestors’ homes from the following London areas in 1910: Albany, Belsize, Camden Town, Chalk Farm, Euston, Grays Inn Road, Highgate East, Highgate West, Kilburn, Priory and Adelaide Parish (Hampstead), St Andrew East, St Andrew West, St Giles East, St Giles North, St Giles South, Saffron Hill, Somers Town and Tottenham Court Road.

Tottenham Court Road, London

These property tax records, collected by the Inland Revenue’s Valuation offices, are linked to detailed OS maps that will pinpoint down to plot level and can be searched by name or keywords using the Master Search, or by selecting a pin from the map displayed inside TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™. The ability to switch between georeferenced modern and historic maps allows the researcher to see how the neighbourhood in which their ancestors had lived or worked may have altered with the passing of time.

IR58 records around Highgate Cemetery on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ 

The huge value of these IR58 records, uniquely digitised by TheGenealogist from the originals at The National Archives, are that Family history researchers as well as house historians will be able to discover all sorts of information about the past owners and occupiers of the homes, land, outbuildings and property recorded in these areas at the time before Britain was plunged into the First World War.

Read TheGenealogist’s article From showgirl to Dame of the British Empire: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/from-showgirl-to-dame-of-the-british-empire-1519/

The latest release from TheGenealogist sees 60,290 new owner and occupier records being added to their unique Lloyd George Domesday Survey record set. The IR58 Inland Revenue Valuation Office records reveal to family historians all sorts of details about their ancestors' home, land, outbuildings and property owned or occupied in Edmonton, Enfield and Southgate at the time of the survey in the 1910s.

Baker Street, Enfield from Image Archive on TheGenealogist

These property tax records, taken at a time when the government was seeking to raise funds for the introduction of social welfare programmes, introduced revolutionary taxes on the lands and incomes of Britain's population. To carry out this policy the government used surveyors to catalogue a description of each property in a street and also to plot it’s location on large-scale OS maps.

Using the IR58 records from The National Archives, these valuable records can now be searched using the Master Search at TheGenealogist or by clicking on the pins displayed on TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™. The ability to switch between georeferenced modern and historic maps means that the family historian can see how the landscape where their ancestors had lived or worked may have changed over time.

Baker Street, Enfield – Lloyd George Domesday OS map on Map Explorer™ 

This online 1910s property records resource is unique to TheGenealogist and enables the researcher to thoroughly investigate a place in which an ancestor had lived in the 1910s notwithstanding that the streets may have undergone unrecognisable change in the intervening years. 

See TheGenealogist’s page about the Lloyd George Domesday Survey here:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/lloyd-george-domesday/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

TheGenealogist has announced their best offer of the year!

Not only can you get their impressive Diamond Subscription for the price of Gold, but the icing on the cake is that the offer comes with a Lifetime Discount so you'll save every year you stick with them!

Claim TheGenealogist’s Black Friday Offer and you'll pay just £98.95! They'll also give you a Premium Research package worth over £65 at no extra cost. An ideal gift for Christmas!

You'll Gain Access to Unique Record Collections Not Available Elsewhere including:

• Land and house Records for 1910 - Showing details of the property, owner and occupier. Pinpoints the location on historic maps.
• Land Records for 1836 - Showing details of the owner, occupier and land use with income. Pinpoints the location on historic maps.
• Royal Air Force Operations Records - These detailed records give the names of crews and details of sorties.

Unique Search Tools to Break Down Your Brick Walls

TheGenealogist is the only website that has keyword search, family forename search, address search and Map Explorer search tools to help you pinpoint your ancestors.

They're constantly adding new records, at no extra cost!

This year TheGenealogist have released millions of new records covering England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. They have increased their coverage of a broad variety of records that are essential resources for family history researchers.

The top three record collections added in the last year total over 72 Million records:

• The Scottish Census (1841-1901) - 24 Million Records
• The 1939 Register - 34 Million records
• The Complete Anglican Parish Records for Wales - 14 Million Records

Other new records this year include:

• Norfolk Parish Records - 1,445,523 records
• Irish Parish Records - 1,327,300 records
• RAF Records - 1,550,000 records
• Suffolk Parish Records - 322,894 records
• Land & House Records - 430,000 records
• Military Records - 150,000 records
• New Headstone Records - 55,000 records
• Who's Who Records - 100,000 records
• Irish Wills - 100,000 records
• British and Irish Directories
• 1086 Domesday Records

Snap up this offer now! www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

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

[Ealing Broadway from the Image Archive on TheGenealogist]

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
  
  

Read TheGenealogist’s article about the famous home of St Trinian’s and Lavender Hill Mob found in these Ealing records: 

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/the-home-of-st-trinians-and-the-lavender-hill-mob-appears-in-the-land-tax-records-ir58-1444/

TheGenealogist’s Map ExplorerTM, the powerful mapping tool for family historians, has been boosted this week 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 which are overlaid on the modern and historical maps of the base and middle layers of Map Explorer™. This enables the user to see the land as it appeared through time. Tithe records allow researchers to find land that was 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 meant that it is 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.

First & Last House, Land’s End from TheGenealogist’s Image Archive

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 4 counties
• Total new Tithe plot pins on Map Explorer: 547,976
• Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ including this release now: 10,494
• 4,504,575 viewable records are now indicated by Map Pins on Map Explorer™

In TheGenealogist’s article about this release, we can look at how some furze-covered tracts of countryside at Land’s End were transformed by a family into a tourist spot. Finding the plots of neighbours on the tithe maps and by also using TheGenealogist’s census collection and its standout feature allowing a researcher to view all the households on a street, we are able to investigate how the different names in the records were related to each other with various “cousins'' living next door or owning adjacent plots of land.

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

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/keeping-it-in-the-family----the-tale-of-lands-end-1438/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

TheGenealogist reaches over 1 million 1910s Property Records

TheGenealogist has now added a total of over 1 million individuals to its unique Lloyd George Domesday Survey recordset with the addition this week of 85,959 individuals from the 1910s property tax records for the Borough of Haringey. Covering the areas of Hornsey Central, Hornsey East, Hornsey West, as well as Tottenham A, Tottenham B, Tottenham C and Wood Green this week’s release is made up of maps and field books that name property owners and occupiers in a exclusive online resource that gives family history researchers the ability to discover where an ancestor lived in the 1910-1915 period. 

When combined with other records such as the 1911 Census, the IR58 Valuation Office records give researchers additional information about their ancestors' home, land, outbuildings and property. While these records may be searched from the Master Search or main search page of TheGenealogist, they have also been added to TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™ so that the family historian can see how the landscape where their ancestor lived or worked changed as the years have passed.

All of the contemporary OS maps are linked to field books that reveal descriptions of the property, as well as listing the names of owners and occupiers. This release makes it possible to precisely locate where an ancestor lived on a number of large scale, hand annotated maps for this part of London. These map the exact plots of properties at the time of the survey and are layered over various georeferenced historical maps and modern base maps on the Map Explorer™. Only available online from TheGenealogist, these records enable the researcher to thoroughly investigate a place in which an ancestor lived even if the streets have undergone massive change in the intervening years. 

Read TheGenealogist’s article that finds the Tottenham cottage responsible for giving the old Spurs football ground its popular name: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/haringey-land-valuation-records-uncovers-the-modest-house-that-gave-its-name-to-a-famous-football-stadium-1429/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

TheGenealogist is launching the complete census for Scotland (1841-1901) at The Family History Show Online on Saturday 19th June. For the first time you can use their renowned brick wall busting search tools on these records. You can find a person using keywords such as occupation, birthplace, year of birth and more, search for a family using their forenames  or search for an address.

George Street, Stranraer

This release adds over 24 million records from the Census of Scotland 1841-1901 to their already substantial data offering. TheGenealogist provides an extreemly strong package for family historians researching British Isles ancestors with its wide range of data that also includes the advantage of its unique Land Records (Tithe and Land Tax) that give ownership and occupiers down to property level.

TheGenealogist has been extremely busy in the last year expanding its coverage for its Diamond subscribers to cover all areas of the British Isles. 

Releases in the last nine months have seen 14.5 million individuals from all the Anglican Parish Records for Wales added. A further 34 million records for England and Wales came with the release of the 1939 Register records. There were 100,000 Irish Will records and now, this week, TheGenealogist is pleased to announce that these have been joined by over 24 million records from the Census of Scotland 1841-1901.

This is the first time that TheGenealogist has released such a large number of Scottish records and it now means that this important data for the most northerly part of the British Isles can now be searched using the comprehensive search features for which TheGenealogist is renowned. Appreciated by family historians researching their ancestors for the ease of use of its powerful Master Search, TheGenealogist gives researchers the ability to select phonetic, exact or standard search filters. 

The comprehensive search facilities that are already available when using TheGenealogist’s English and Welsh census records will make this Scottish census release a welcome addition to the family history researcher’s toolkit.

Read TheGenealogist’s feature article: Scottish census records list the homes of Scots from city dwellers to lighthouse keepers.

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/scottish-census-records-list-the-homes-of-scots-from-city-dwellers-to-lighthouse-keepers-1421/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, which puts a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

TheGenealogist has just added a marvellous new feature which makes its Map Explorer™ resource even more appealing for family historians.

Image Archive pictures located on georeferenced old and modern maps using the Map Explorer™ 

Already boasting georeferenced historical and modern maps, Tithe Records and Maps to look for your Victorian ancestors’ homes, Lloyd George Domesday Records and Maps for nearly one million individuals, Headstones and War memorials, the mapping interface now also allows TheGenealogist’s Diamond subscribers the ability to also see what their ancestors’ towns and areas in the U.K. once looked like. With the addition of these period photographs of street scenes and parish churches where researchers' ancestors may have been baptised, married and buried, this new feature allows subscribers to jump back in time.

This release sees the ever-multiplying collection of historical photographs from TheGenealogist’s Image Archive accessible for the first time from inside Map Explorer™ as a recordset layer. The various images for an area have their locations pinpointed on the maps allowing family historians to explore their ancestors’ hometowns and other landmarks from around their area.

When viewing an Image Archive record in TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™, the family history researcher is shown the image’s location on the map as well as from what point of view the photographer took the photo. Also included underneath the historical image is a modern map and street view (where it's available) so that the person researching their past family’s area is able to compare the picture from the past with how the area looks today. When used in conjunction with the other georeferenced maps and associated records, TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ is a highly valuable tool for those researching their family history. 

See the photo location, the photographer position, plus a modern map and street view (where available) enabling a comparison to be made of the image and how the area looks today

Watch this short video to learn more about this great new feature:

https://youtu.be/Mt5f-mAyJ5Q 

You can read more and see examples in the article: Images from ancestors’ hometowns on Map Explorer™ allows us to “see” where they lived through their own eyes.

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/images-from-ancestors-hometowns-on-map-explorer-allows-us-to-see-where-they-lived-through-their-own-eyes-1416/

The Family History Show, Online, run by Discover Your Ancestors, is back on Saturday 20th February 2021. This online event builds on what were two previous successful online Family History Shows staged back in June and September last year. On both occasions many happy visitors logged on to enjoy a great day at the virtual event.

Online access to Saturday's show will mean that we are all able to safely enjoy many of the usual features of the physical show from wherever we are in the world, as well as making it possible for those that have disabilities to easily attend.

This show has some exciting new features including the following:

New Chat Features

• Forum - discuss topics, seek help, or offer your own advice to others
• Private Messaging - speak directly to exhibitors and other ticketholders
• Browse Users - a list of all visitors that are currently browsing the show so you can socialise (please note that only those who have chosen to receive messages will be seen here)

Free Talks

• Once you've logged in to the show, you will see the different areas of the show as tabs at the top of the page. Click on the "Lecture Theatre" tab and you will see the timetable of the talks. Once each talk starts it will be available to view on the page for 72 hours. You can pause, rewind and rewatch these talks and they will all be subtitled - just click the [cc] in the bottom right of the video to show the subtitles.

NEW Second Lecture Theatre

The Family History Show, Online now has two Lecture Theatres: a Main Theatre and an Exhibitor Theatre.

• Main Theatre

Here will be specially commissioned high quality videos explaining different topics, given by acknowledged experts, Close Captioned to give access to all and now available for 72 hours from when they premiere.

• Exhibitor Theatre

The second Theatre contains all videos and talks produced by our exhibitors. They are both informative and entertaining and once you have finished you can go to that Stallholder who can tell you more.

• Ask the Experts

The ever-popular Ask the Experts sessions will be held via Jitsi, allowing you to talk face-to-face and get help with your research questions.

You can now book your time slot with an expert by clicking on the 'Ask the Experts' tab at the top of the page on the site. (Please note time slots are limited to one per visitor to ensure as many visitors as possible can benefit from this.)

Expert advice is available on the following areas: Apprenticeships, BMD Records, British India, Census, DNA and DNA Research Tools, General Family History, House History, Irish Research, Medical Ancestors and Disease, Military, Poor Law, Parish Records, Probate, Social History, South Wales Research, Seafarers, Ships' Passengers, Women at War, Women's History and Wills.

At the bottom of the Ask the Experts page, you have the option to submit your questions to the Ask the Expert Panel that will be streamed live at 15:30 on the Lecture Theatre page. You can submit as many questions as you like, and selected questions will be answered during the talk.

The Exhibitor Hall

You will be able to see what groups, societies and companies are available by clicking the 'Exhibitor Hall' tab at the top of the page when you are logged into the show. Some exhibitors will be available to video chat and there is a question feed where you can ask your questions either ahead of the day or on the day. You can browse and purchase exhibitors' products and discover more about the societies that are so vital to the family history community. This features Societies, Groups and Family History Companies.

They are here to help you with your research, and to give advice on products and services. Many stalls have free downloads and guides, those manning their stalls and available to video chat will be listed first.

Your Digital Goody Bag

Don't forget to get your FREE Digital Goody bag (worth over £10) by clicking the 'Goody Bag' tab at the top of the page. This includes 12 back issues of Discover Your Ancestors Periodical and a downloadable Family History Guide.

Buy your ticket now by visiting this site: https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online/tickets/