Society of Genealogists Free Library Tours & Advice for Members and Non-Members
The Society of Genealogist's blog has announced the upcoming dates for their next tours of the library at their premises in London will be 20 January, 3 February and 17 February.
The SoG Library is packed with many family history records, directories and databases and can be a great help for people searching for their ancestors. With more than 140,000 items spread over three floors it is a treasure trove for genealogists to explore.
While you can just go and explore yourself, asking the staff and volunteers for help when you need it, the SoG recommends that you take a Library Tour so that you are introduced to what they hold.
The visits are free to all, last approximately 1½ hours long, and they are on nearly every second Saturday at 11.15 am.
The Society is also offering free half-hour advice sessions on these Saturdays. You can book an appointment by contacting the library by email or telephone.
To see more take a look at their blog here:
http://www.sog.org.uk/news/article/society-of-genealogists-free-library-tours-advice-for-members-and-non-membe
TheGenealogist has added over 1.9 million individuals to its parish record collection covering the county of Sussex. Published In association with The Parish Record Transcription Society, this second release of records for the English county more than doubles the number of parish records available for the area.
Sussex scene from TheGenealogist Image ArchiveTheGenealogist now has over 3 million individuals in the Sussex Parish Record Collection.The new batch covers individual records of:
1,278,413 Baptisms
308,746 Marriages
327,091 Burials
The Parish Record Transcription Society (PRTSoc) have worked with TheGenealogist and S&N to make their records available online. With a combined 3 million plus individuals from baptism, marriage and burial records now fully searchable it is easier than ever to discover ancestors from Sussex by turning to TheGenealogist’s parish records collection. These records are published as a result of a major project undertaken by PRTSoc staff and dedicated volunteers to transcribe the parish registers of West Sussex with the aim of preserving them for generations to come. By working with TheGenealogist these are now also searchable by online researchers on TheGenealogist.This release joins TheGenealogist’s Sussex collection including parish records to form a major resource for the county. Read their article here:https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/new-release-of-sussex-parish-records-reveals-709/This release adds to the ever expanding collection of parish records on TheGenealogist.
The latest release from TheGenealogist comes out today:
Queen Mary 1936 from TheGenealogist Image ArchiveTheGenealogist has just released over 2.7 million BT27 records for the 1930s. These Outbound Passenger Lists are part of an expanding immigration and emigration record set on TheGenealogist that feature the historical records of passengers who sailed out of United Kingdom ports in the years between 1930 and 1939. With the release of this decade of records, the already strong Immigration,Emigration, Naturalisation and passenger list resources on TheGenealogist have been expanded again. The fully searchable BT27 records from The National Archives released today will allow researchers to:
Discoverpotential family members travelling together using TheGenealogist’s SmartSearch. This unique system is able to recognise family members together on the same voyage. In this situation it will display a family icon which allows you to view the entire family with one click.
Find people travelling to America, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the Passenger lists of people departing by sea from the United Kingdom.
View images of the original passenger list documents that had been kept by the Board of Trade's Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors.
Discover the ages, last address and where the passenger intended to make their permanent residence.
These fully indexed records allow family historians to search by name, year, country of departure, country of arrival, port of embarkation and port of destination.
Latest News on a Major new release:
TheGenealogist has released the first part of an exciting new record set, The Lloyd George Domesday Survey - a major new release that will find where an ancestor lived in 1910. This unique combination of maps and residential data, held by The National Archives and being digitised by TheGenealogist, can precisely locate your ancestor’s house on large scale (5 feet to the mile) hand annotated maps that plots the exact property.
Image of IR91 Index book Complementing the maps on TheGenealogist are the accompanying books that will also provide researchers with basic information relative to the valuation of each property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent.This mammoth project begins with the first release of the IR91 Index with subsequent releases of the more detailed IR58 Field Books planned. There are over 94,500 Field Books, each having hundreds of pages to digitise with associated large scale IR121 annotated OS maps. The initial release from TheGenealogist is for the City of London and Paddington maps with their index records. Future releases will expand out across the country with cross linked maps wherever they are available.Find out more at: TheGenealogist.co.uk/1910Survey/Mark Bayley, Head of Development at TheGenealogist says:“With our English & Welsh Tithe Map collection, we’ve become known for our map based records and this new collection makes a fantastic later addition. The maps show an incredible amount of detail, allowing you to zoom right in on the hand annotated property. The records that go with these maps are just as detailed, allowing you to find out all manner of information about your ancestral home.”The National Archives issued the following statement:“The Lloyd George ‘Domesday Records’ form essentially a census of property for Edwardian England and Wales. The innovative linking of individually searchable property data with associated annotated Ordnance Survey maps will be of huge value to family and local historians alike.”To find out more about these records, you can visit our informative record collection page at: TheGenealogist.co.uk/1910Survey/
In time for Armistice day TheGenealogist has added to their War Memorial records on the website so that there are now over 383,000 fully searchable records.
War Memorial at Olds, Alberta in Canada newly added to TheGenealogist
This latest release includes war memorials from Worcestershire and South Yorkshire as well as some further monuments from Australia, Canada, London and various other British counties. A more unusual one added in this release is from Olds, in Alberta, Canada - the memorial is a Sherman tank!War Memorial at Olds, Alberta in Canada newly added to TheGenealogistFully 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.These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.Read our article on War Memorials that reveal WW1 heros, The neglected Sheffield soldier finally recognised, at: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/war-memorials-that-reveal-ww1-heroes-681/
More funds are now available to archives for catalogue their holdings under a new scheme.
Archives Revealed, has been launched by The National Archives and The Pilgrim Trust and this will offer grants of up to £40,000 to create catalogues of archival collections. The deadline for applications is 12 January 2018.
In February 2018, scoping grants worth up to £3,000, which are provided to allow archives to conduct analysis of their future cataloguing priorities, will be opened up for applications.
TNA's website says that 'An archive without a catalogue is like a room without a door: there’s no way of finding out what is inside.' With this in mind the scheme builds on the success of the National Cataloguing Grants Programme for Archives. Part of the revised funding criteria includes an assessment of the collection’s rarity, historical value, and research value to a variety of audience groups plus what need there is for it to be catalogued.
Jeff James, chief executive and keeper of The National Archives, said: “Along with The Pilgrim Trust we look forward to working with archives from across the country to support their efforts in cataloguing more of their rich and diverse collections and opening them up for all to use.”
TheGenealogist has added over 140,000 individuals to their Parish Records for Worcestershire and Warwickshire to increase the coverage of these midland counties. Released in association with Malvern Family History Society and the Nuneaton & North Warwickshire Family History Society, this is an ongoing project to make available high quality transcripts to family history researchers.
97,841 individuals have been added to the Worcestershire baptism records
44,250 individuals join the Warwickshire baptism records
These new records can be used to find your ancestors’ baptisms, in fully searchable records that cover parishes from this area of England. With records that reach back to the mid 16th century, this release allows family historians to find the names of ancestors, their parents’ forenames, the father’s occupation (where noted), and the parish that the event took place at.This is an ongoing project where family history societies transcribe records for their areas to be released on both TheGenealogist and FHS-Online, the website that brings together data from various Family History Societies across the UK while providing a much needed extra source of funds for societies.These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist. If your society is interested in publishing records online, please contact Mark Bayley on 01722 717002 or see fhs-online.co.uk/about.php
The National Archives (TNA) has announced a talk by the author Stephan McGann
Taking place on Friday 24 November 2017 between 18:00 – 20:00 GMT.
Flesh and Blood will be of interest to family historians as it is the story of McGann’s family as told through seven maladies – diseases, wounds or ailments that have afflicted his relatives over the last 150 years. These, he believes, have helped to mould him into what he now perceives himself to be.
This early evening talk promises to be a great opportunity to hear Stephen, who you may know better as the actor that plays Dr Patrick Turner in the BBC's show Call the Midwife, talk about his latest book, inspired by his passion for genealogy with an academic interest in the social dimensions of medicine.
Stephen McGann has been an ambassador for Explore Your Archive since 2014.
The National Archives run an exciting range of events and exhibitions on a wide variety of topics. For more details, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/whatson.
Stephen McGann By Digsa (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
TheGenealogist has released some useful records this week for those who are researching their military ancestors. Here is the press release that gives you more information and a link to a fascinating article:
TheGenealogistis pleased to announce it has added two new record sets that will be useful for researching the First World War and Victorian soldiers.
Part one of this release is The Worldwide Army Index for 1851, 1861 and 1871 which adds another name rich resource to the already vast Military record collections at TheGenealogist with over 600,000 records
Also released at the same time is another 3,368 pages from TheIllustrated War News covering 6 September 1916 to 10 April 1918 and adding to those previously made available for this First World War paper from 1914 to 1916
The Worldwide Army Index for 1851, 1861 and 1871If you have not found your ancestor in the various British census returns, and you know that they may have been serving at the time in the British Army, then this new release from TheGenealogist may help you to find these elusive subjects. Many thousands of men of the British Army were serving overseas in far flung parts of the British Empire over the 1800s. This index of names is compiled from the musters contained in the WO 10-11-12 Series of War Office Paylists, held at the National Archives, Kew. The 1851, 1861 and 1871 Worldwide Army Index lists all officers* and other ranks serving in the first quarter of 1851 and second quarter of 1861 and 1871,together with their regimental HQ location. The index is, therefore, effectively a military surrogate for the relevant census. Over 70,000 records have extra notes that can indicate whether a soldier was a recruit awaiting transfer to a regiment, detached from his regiment or attached to another, possibly discharged, on leave, had deserted or retired. Men identified as using aliases are also included. Many notes include a place of birth and former occupation.Also included within the records are recruits, boy soldiers, bandsmen and civilians working in the armed forces as clerks, pension recruiters, teachers and suchlike. Colonial regiments which invariably had numbers of British subjects are also featured.The Illustrated War News was a weekly magazine during the First World War, published by The Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd. of London. The IWN publication contained illustrated reports related entirely to the war and comprised articles, photographs, diagrams and maps. From 1916 it was issued as a 40-page publication in portrait format, having been landscape prior to this. It claimed to have the largest number of artist-correspondents reporting on the progress of the war until it ceased publication in 1918.To search these and many other records go to: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/search/advanced/military/muster-book-pay-list/or read our article at: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/worldwide-army-index-1851-1861--1871-661/*While the 1851 and 1871 include officers, the 1861 index excludes officers as they were not mustered in all the Paylists.
![By Digsa (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](/image/2017/10/Stephen_McGann.png)
