At last week's Who Do You Think You Are? Live in among the talks, family history societies, genealogy suppliers and data providers were a delegation from a town council from Surrey that obviously values its history and genealogy.
It would seem that the town of Godalming has launched its own ancestry website at www.godalmingancestry.co.uk and representatives of the town spoke to our writer and handed us a leaflet that interested us so much that we have decided to mention it here.
Perhaps other towns may like to take a leaf from their book and do something similar?
Godalming Ancestry Website at www.godalmingancestry.co.uk
The BBC 2 TV programme: Nelson in His Own Wordsis on our screens today, or can be seen on the iPlayer for 30 days.
Horatio Nelson was Britain's greatest naval hero and this programme shows us how he was also a prolific letter writer. The correspondence reveals that Nelson was a very different and more complex man than the hero that Britain created after his death. Using Nelson's letters this drama documentary exposes Nelson's skilful and manipulative use of PR to advance his career, and shows how he was careful in his praise of his rivals - in case they threatened his own prospects. And the letters reveal how his passionate love affair with Lady Emma Hamilton changed his life forever. The programme stars the highly regarded RSC actor Jonathan Slinger as Nelson.
In a twist, TheGenealogist have a fascinating article on their website that reveals more of Nelsons words but this time as featured in his last will and testament that can be found using their resources. Of particular interest is the codicil that Nelson wrote just before the Battle of Trafalgar "in sight of the combined fleets of France and Spain" that asked the King and Government to provide for his mistress, Lady Emma Hamilton. With the great victory that Nelson delivered, but losing his life in the process, the authorities heaped money and titles on his family while ignoring his very last wishes in the codicil he had written on the day of his death!
TheGenealogist has now completed transcribing birth, marriage and death records for England and Wales giving a third of a billion fully searchable records. These are also linked into their unique 'SmartSearch' facility taking you through a person’s life events.
This release marks the completion of a hugely successful project for TheGenealogist, now providing family historians with fully transcribed BMD records dating back to the start of civil registration in 1837.
What makes this unique is the linked in ‘SmartSearch’ feature, which makes life even easier for the family historian.
Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content, explains: "The transcriptions allow us to harness the full power of 'SmartSearch' and allow our users to swiftly jump from one record to the next. It's now possible to move through your ancestral line with unparalleled speed. No other site makes searching for your ancestors so straightforward."
There's more details on the completion of this project at www.TheGenealogist.co.uk
TheGenealogist has just added another 10 million individuals to their collection of Death Transcripts - this brings the total to over 68 million records, and takes the transcripts now back to 1880!
These transcripts can be used with a tool that lets you search across all the Birth, Marriage and Death transcripts, with built in SmartSearch technology, automatically showing the partner's full name where available, and enabling you to find potential parents from a birth, potential children to a marriage and potential birth records from a death record. To find out more and see how the SmartSearch works go to TheGenealogist website.
TheGenealogist has just added over 10 million death transcripts to the website, bringing the total number of death records to now over 52 million available on the website for subscribers to access covering the years from 1910 to 2005.
These transcripts can be used with a tool that lets you search across all the Birth, Marriage and Death transcripts, with built in SmartSearch technology, enabling you to find potential parents from a birth, potential children to a marriage and potential birth records from a death record.
Here we take the example of well loved comedy actor Ronnie Barker who sadly died in 2005. This is one of the later records, the collection on TheGenealogist now dates back to 1910. From here, the researcher can find birth records and further continue their search.
Searching for the death certificate for Ronnie Barker
One mouse click and you have a copy of his death certificate:
Copy of death certificate
It allows the family history researcher to find records quickly and easily and from just a death record, it's now possible to discover the birth date of the person, their parents, siblings and really progress your search.
There is more information from this link to the news page on TheGenealogist.
Linking together the life of a relative can often be a difficult and time consuming task if you don’t have much prior information to go on… however, I've found with my subscription to TheGenealogist that this process can be a whole lot simpler with its unique ‘SmartSearch’ facility. This has been further enhanced by the addition of 14 million newly transcribed death records from 1960 to 1983 to add even more power to the search feature.
With the total of 26 million death records for England and Wales from 1960 to 2005 now available on TheGenealogist, using the unique ‘SmartSearch’ feature, I've discovered we can now go from the death record from 1960 to 2005, to a birth record, to finding the parent’s marriage to tracing siblings in very easy steps. The team at TheGenealogist tell me by Christmas the records should stretch back to 1930 adding even more power to our fingertips!
As an example, I've used one of the newly transcribed death records on TheGenealogist to see a prime example of how the new records can really benefit your family research. I’ve taken the records of legendary T-Rex guitarist and vocalist, Marc Bolan, who tragically died in 1977 at the age of 29.
Marc Bolan at the height of his fame
His real name was Mark Feld which we can now use to search the death records on TheGenealogist.
Death record result for Mark Feld
Mark Feld transcribed death record
The ‘SmartSearch’ facility allows us to jump straight to his birth record which links to his parents and potential siblings. Mark didn’t have a brother or sister but we can find full details of his parents Simeon and Phyllis (including marriage record below) which allows us to move onto the next stage of the family tree.
Marriage record details
In my opinion, the 26 million death records now transcribed on TheGenealogist really enhances the ‘SmartSearch’ feature. From a death record it’s now easy to jump to past generations with just a few mouse clicks. You can now start your research with just the basic data and still find results quickly. Searching is now quicker and easier than ever.
