Welcome to the Family History Social

To celebrate Women's History Month the Society of Genealogists (SoG) is holding a talk on Saturday 12 March, 10.30AM

Mummy, what did you do in the Great War? My Ancestor was a Woman at War

Join Emma Jolly at the SoG to find out more about the jobs women did in the First World War. In this talk, Emma explores the range of women’s roles and where to look for the surviving records (including online sources), which family historians can use to explore the lives of their ancestors and others.

Emma covers women who worked:

• in the auxiliary services
• in medical organisations and transport
• in police forces
• on the land
• in voluntary organisations

As Emma intends to open the talk up for discussion, please bring your own stories along.

A one-hour talk with Emma Jolly, cost £10.00/£6.50 SoG members. 

https://www.sog.org.uk/events

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/

After the extremely successful virtual events held online last year, The Family History Show, Online is returning in February so that once more you can enjoy all the features of a physical family history show, but from the comfort of your own home.

The Family History Show, Online is gearing up for its return on Saturday 19th February 2022.

You'll have the opportunity to put your research questions to an expert, watch professionally produced talks and to speak to family history societies, archives and genealogical suppliers by text, audio, video chat or email from the comfort of your own home.

You will also be able to submit your questions to the Ask the Experts panel before the show and you have a choice to either book a free 1-to-1 session or to watch the question panel at 15:30 where our experts answer your questions!

Save the date in your diary and snap up an early bird ticket now for only £7! You'll also get a downloadable goody bag worth over £10.

Featuring All New Talks

From Cradle to Grave

Jackie Depelle - Family History Tutor and Speaker

Jackie's talk shows you how to follow the life of an ancestor, using key family history sources, plus more from maps to house history

Solving Genealogy Brickwalls: A Case Study

Amelia Bennett - Expert Researcher, Census Detective with the SOG

This talk uses an example from Amelia's own family history where she progressed a brickwall using DNA alongside traditional genealogy research. The path to solving this brickwall had a number of surprises along the way with forgeries, quick marriages, criminal ancestors and often more questions than answers. In telling the story, methods and tools for using DNA to break down brickwalls are provided.

The Joy of Surnames

Debbie Kennett - DNA & Surname Expert and Writer 

Each surname has its own story to tell. This lecture provides an overview of the history and distribution of surnames with a focus on surnames originating in the British Isles. The one-name study approach can provide breakthroughs that would not be possible by restricting research to your own family tree.

Family history and the media: behind the scenes of Who Do You Think You Are?

Nick Barratt - Historian, Author and Professional Genealogist

Exploring the impact of Who Do You Think You Are? on the way we research our family stories, with an explanation of how the show was first conceived and produced.

Ask the Experts Live Q&A Panel

with Mark Bayley, Debbie Kennett, Jackie Depelle and Nick Barratt.

Submit your questions to our panel of experts before the show. Either book a free 1-to-1 session or watch the live stream question panel at 15:30 where you can ask your questions live!

Societies, Archives and Companies

Visit exhibitors, societies, archives and companies in our virtual exhibition hall. Here there will be the opportunity to talk to some of the stallholders by text, audio or video from the comfort of your own home.

Show Partners

SoG, AGRA, TheGenealogist, GenFair, S&N Genealogy

Early Bird Ticket Offer

Buy your tickets in advance and save - tickets to attend The Family History Show Online are available from the website at just £7.00 each. You will also get a FREE virtual goody bag on the day worth over £10. https://thefamilyhistoryshow.com/online/tickets/

Travel back in time and locate an ancestor’s address from the 1911 England and Wales census using contemporary and georeferenced maps on TheGenealogist.co.uk’s Map Explorer™.

1911 census records identified on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ 

This groundbreaking feature allows you to pin down your ancestors to properties on a contemporary map at the time of the census in 1911. With this feature family historians are able to walk the streets where their ancestors lived as not only can it be accessed on a computer but also on the move on a mobile phone!

This is an invaluable tool for house historians making it easier than ever to link census records to properties and complementing the already rich georeferenced Lloyd George Domesday Survey and Tithe records that are already available on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™. 

For the first time the properties recorded in the 1911 census can now be matched with georeferenced mapping to show where our English or Welsh ancestors had lived at the time of the census taken on the night of the 2nd April 1911. The majority of London can be seen all the way down to property level, while the rest of the country will identify down to the parish, road or street.

With this new release, viewing a household record from the 1911 census will now show a map, pinpointing your ancestors house. Clicking this map loads the location in Map Explorer™, enabling you to explore the area and see the records of neighbouring properties.

Discover the neighbourhoods in which your ancestors lived, and gain an insight into their lives from local churches to employment prospects in the area and the roads, rail or water links that were available. 

Read TheGenealogist’s article: Where did they live? – Mapping Your Ancestors home in 1911: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/where-did-they-live--mapping-your-ancestors-home-in-1911-1513/ 

Sign up today for only £24.99 and receive the following:

• 12 monthly issues of the Periodical
• Access to 500,000,000 birth, marriage and death records
• Free data: Titanic passenger list
• Free ebook: York, 1868 Poll Book

https://discoveryourancestors.co.uk/subscribe/

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

Episode 6 of Who Do You Think You Are? will be Joe Sugg's family research and will be on Tuesday 23rd November 2021, BBC One 9 pm.

YouTuber and actor Joe Sugg uncovers some incredible stories in his family tree, with a little help along the way from fellow social media star and big sister, Zoe.  Joe, very aptly, discovers a great-great-great grandfather who was involved in the earliest days of communication technology – in electrical telegraphs. Pushing further back, he finds seven-times-great grandparents who fled religious persecution in France and a goldsmith who survived the Great Fire of London.

WARNING: SPOLIER ALERT! If you don't mind knowing what is going to be in the programme before you watch it then you can read all about it here: Joe Sugg – Who Do You Think You Are? Otherwise there are six days to go before its on your TV!

Look out for the broadcast which will be on BBC One Tuesday 23 November 2021 at 9 pm.