Welcome to the Family History Social

Family history website TheGenealogist has just released a new collection of name rich records of interest to English, Scottish and Welsh family historians.

The Guilds, Societies and People of Note collection includes records that reveal names, dates and information about ancestors who were Freemen, Liverymen, Aldermen, members of the Masons and Oddfellows, or people classed as Worthies.

The various records in this collection have been gathered together under TheGenealogist’s extensive Occupational Records and adds 65,000 names from fourteen new resources to this collection. Fully searchable by name or keyword from TheGenealogist’s Master Search. The new additions include records from a variety of sources, including:

• Freemen Registers: These records list the names of people who were granted the freedom of a particular town or city. The freedom of a town or city gave its holder certain privileges, such as the right to trade within the town or city walls.
• Liverymen Lists: These records catalogue the names of people who were members of a particular guild. Guilds were organisations of craftsmen or merchants who banded together to protect their interests.
• Aldermen Rolls: These records list the names of citizens who served as aldermen in a particular town or city. Aldermen were elected officials who served on the town or city council.
• Masons and Oddfellows Records: These records list the names of people who were members of the Freemasons or the Oddfellows. The Freemasons and the Oddfellows are two fraternal organisations that have been around for centuries.
• Worthies Records: These records list the names of people who were considered to be “worthies” of their community. Worthies could be anyone from prominent politicians or successful businessmen to renowned military personalities.

Use these records to reveal names, dates and information about ancestors who were Freemen of various towns and cities, Liverymen, Aldermen, members of the Masons and the Oddfellows, or who were Worthies in their circle. Gathered together under the Guilds, Societies and People of Note section of TheGenealogist’s Occupational Records, this diverse collection can reveal fascinating research clues to work with.

This release includes the following resources:

– A Calendar of the Freemen of Great Yarmouth 1429-1800

– The Aldermen of Cripplegate Ward 1276-1900

– Yorkshire, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, Volume I [1905]

– Yorkshire, History of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, Volume II [1906]

– London Worthies by William Kent [1939]

– Freemen of Lynn 1292-1836

– Record Of Unitarian Worthies

– Rules and Regulations Office-Bearers and Members Weavers' Society of Anderston 1901

– Register of Freemen of the City of London

– Cornish Worthies, Vol. I, 1884

– Cornish Worthies, Vol. II, 1884

– A List of The Wardens Members of The Court of Assistants and Liverymen of The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths since 1688

– The Masonic Directory and Cyclopedia of History 1885

– Directory of the Independent Order of Oddfellows, 1908-1909

To learn more about how this collection of records helped us in the research of Captain Bligh read TheGenealogist’s article: A veritable Bounty of information found in the Occupational records.

https://thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/a-veritable-bounty-of-information-found-in-the-occupational-records-1866/ 

TheGenealogist has added to its Headstone Collection copies of records from certain local authorities and the Church Commissioners that relate to the removal of graves and tombstones in burial grounds. These records are held by The National Archives.

They detail former cemeteries from all over England and Wales and cover the years 1619 to 2003. A number contain a plan of the original place of burial while some will reveal the place of reinterment also.

An example of transcription of a headstone removed in TheGenealogist’s RG 37 records

Headstones are an extremely useful record for the family historian as they can give the researcher information that has not been recorded elsewhere.

They are mostly accurate in revealing dates and names and often other family members are on the same tombstone or are buried close by.

When a grave or headstone has been removed then a record of the inscription may have been recorded in this particular recordset.

The Removal of Graves and Tombstones records on TheGenealogist are part of their Death & Burials – Headstone Collection and are searchable by: 

• the deceased’s name
• year of death
• place of original burial
• any keyword that may have been included

Details from a search of TheGenealogist’s Death & Burials records

The origin of these RG 37 official records of burial ground removals can be traced back to 1911 and a recommendation was made by the Attorney General that such records be made and deposited with the local registrar of births and deaths. The Registrar General suggested to the Home Secretary of the time that the records should be deposited with the miscellaneous records held by the General Register Office instead of at the local registrar. 

If your ancestor was buried in one of the burial grounds to have been recorded in this release then, despite the headstone no longer standing, you will be able to discover details about your ancestor recorded on their tombstone at the time it had been originally erected.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: A not so final resting place

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/a-not-so-final-resting-place-1813/

TheGenealogist has added 56,924 new individuals to their War Memorial collection, bringing the total number of fully searchable War Memorial Records on TheGenealogist to over 665,000.

These fully searchable records have been transcribed and their location plotted to allow subscribers to find the names of ancestors that paid the ultimate sacrifice.

War Memorials come in various types. Photos ⓒ Mark Herber

These War Memorials, from the UK and abroad, can provide us with useful details about our ancestors revealing organisations and places that they had belonged to. 

• War Memorials can divulge links to a community, village, town etc
• Workplace memorials can tell us where they had worked before the conflict 
• Organisation monuments and plaques honour past members that fell
• Former pupils and staff of a school or university are remembered at the institution
• Names in a church, or other places of worship, tell us about religious affiliation

This release includes images from war memorials of a variety of shapes and sizes and have been fully transcribed. Covering the war dead from various conflicts including the Boer War, the First World War and World War II an ancestor’s inclusion on a memorial can be profoundly moving to find, especially as so many of the war dead will have no actual grave for us to visit. 

Hertfordshire Records and Maps

Also released this week are over 33,000 Lloyd George Domesday Survey records for the Hitchen area of Hertfordshire where we find the occupation and ownership records of people from across the social strata. These link through to highly detailed contemporary maps to show exactly where your ancestor lived. You can then see how the area changed over time with TheGenealogist’s powerful MapExplorer. 

These newly released records include the childhood home of the King’s beloved grandmother.

Discover More

To find out more about both of these releases, you can read TheGenealogist’s Featured Article: The Queen Mother’s childhood home and the Australian Hero killed on the streets before her coronation. https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-queen-mothers-childhood-home-and-the-australian-hero-killed-on-the-streets-before-her-coronation-1695/ 

TheGenealogist launches 3.4 Million brand new enhanced census images

Researchers using TheGenealogist will now have access to the highest resolution and quality 1851, 1861 & 1871 census images for England and Wales ever seen online with vastly improved readability revealing even faint writing in pencil.

Building on the success of their previously upgraded 1891 census image release, TheGenealogist has now significantly improved the image quality of all its 1851,1861 and 1871 census images as well.

Clearer Images of the 1861 census finds Charles Dickens and family

TheGenealogist’s new images can really make a difference - Comparison of Old and New

Replacing the old bitonal images with high-resolution greyscale census images reveals  the details in the census columns or margins and where previously faint writing, shadows or pencil marks could render an image unreadable. 

Mark Bayley, Head of Development at TheGenealogist said:
“We’re extremely proud to announce this tremendous leap forward in clarity and readability. Thanks to the latest technology and many years of hard work, we now have the best possible images for the 1851, 1861, 1871 and 1891 census for England and Wales. It’s remarkable just how much extra detail you can see in these images.”

TheGenealogist’s “Deep Zoom” images have over 5 times the resolution of previous images and yet are still fast to view, thanks to the technology used in their image interface. Writing appears sharper on the new images and allows you to zoom in to reveal what would otherwise be illegible words on other sites. In addition TheGenealogist has the benefit of searchable occupations and addresses on their census transcripts, making them quicker and easier to find.

Read TheGenealogist’s article:  Murder in the margin! https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/murder-in-the-margin-1688/ 

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!

These records cover wanted persons, absentees and deserter records in TheGenealogist’s latest release

Over 56,000 individuals and 20,802 further aliases from The Police Gazette have been released by TheGenealogist covering the years 1901, 1911, 1921 and 1931 and are now available to Diamond subscribers in their Court and Criminal Records Collection.

Searchable by name, alias, offence among other keywords, these records have been transcribed by volunteers from UKIndexer to provide an effective resource for discovering descriptions of our wayward ancestors.

MEPO 6 on TheGenealogist includes the Police Gazette for 1901, 1911, 1921 and 1931

These newly released Police Gazette records (sometimes known to researchers by its historic name of Hue and Cry) are a part of the MEPO 6 criminal records on TheGenealogist that also include Habitual Criminals Registers and Miscellaneous Papers.

The images of the pages from the Police Gazette publication on TheGenealogist were originally published by the Metropolitan Police and circulated to Police forces in the British Isles. They include a number of portraits of the offenders and always give descriptive written details of the individuals. Expect to see the names of persons charged who were known but not in custody, and also the description of those who were not known, their appearance, dress, and every other mark of identity that could help identify the person. Also included in the Police Gazette were the names of accomplices and accessories, with every other particular that may lead to the apprehension of the individuals. 

Wanted for Theft and Desertion

Sections of the Police Gazette were devoted to “Deserters and Absentees” from the military and those “Discharged for Misconduct”. These provide interesting details about ancestors missing from the Army and the Navy. As an example we can find Albert Eyre, 45, a Colour-sergeant in the 1st Battalion Royal Rifles Reserve Regiment. He appears firstly in the alphabetical list on the front page of “Deserters and Absentees from Her Majesty’s Service” in January 1901.

Albert Eyre in the portraits of persons wanted and list of Deserters and Absentees from the Police Gazette 

Eyre then warrants several mentions, including a photograph of him, on the inside pages of subsequent editions. He had by then also become wanted, along with a female accomplice, by Portsmouth Police for “Stealing a considerable amount of Money.” The fugitive was described as: age 45, height 5 ft. 5 in., complexion sallow, hair brown, moustache and imperial dark, eyes grey; dress, black overcoat, dark suit, grey cap.

We can read that he had left Portsmouth accompanied by an unnamed woman whose unflattering description is also published: age 23 (looks older) height 5ft. 5 in., stout build, complexion sallow, hair (short) dyed auburn colour, 1 front tooth deficient.

TheGenealogist has an extensive Court and Criminal Records collection that can be used to discover trouble-making ancestors that include the MEPO 6 records that embrace Registers of Criminals as defined by sections 5-8 of the Prevention of Crimes Act 1871, with examples of the Police Gazettes. 

Read TheGenealogist’s featured article where a search of the MEPO 6 Criminal Records discovers female gang leaders known as the Queen of the Forties: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-queens-of-the-forties-1683/ 

Five Welsh counties Tithe Maps are now georeferenced to modern and historic maps

TheGenealogist has linked the tithe maps for the Welsh counties of Brecknockshire, Cardiganshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Monmouthshire to the Map Explorer™. For the first time TheGenealogist’s subscribers are now able to use these Welsh tithe maps, georeferenced to a variety of historic and modern maps. This will allow the researcher to see how the area has developed from Victorian times through to modern day.

General View Ebbw Vale

The tithe survey came about as a result of the Tithe Commutation Act 1836 designed to change tithes from a payment in kind to a monetary payment. These records are useful for researchers in that they record the names of owners and occupiers, from all levels of society at this time, and give details and value of their holdings. 

Originally tithes were made in kind (crops, wool, milk, young stock, etc.) and were collected mostly for the support of the parish church and its clergy. Generally representing a tenth of the yearly production from cultivation or stock rearing, almost all Welsh parishes were subject to this levy at this time.  

With Map Explorer™ researchers have the ability to display a variety of historical and modern maps so that family, social and house historians are able to view the same plot of land throughout time. Often this will reveal a landscape that has completely changed over the years, as we discover in this week's case study of a house developed in Victorian times. 

• Total of 421,260 georeferenced tithe plots join those already released for England
• 570 georeferenced maps have been added in this release 
• Map Explorer™ now has a total of 5,630,801 georeferenced plots linking to Tithe records across 12,374 total georeferenced Tithe maps
  

See TheGenealogist’s article: Tracing a House in the Monmouthshire tithes to modern day https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/tracing-a-house-in-the-monmouthshire-tithes-to-modern-day-1678/ 

Find out more at TheGenealogist.co.uk/maps/

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!

The 1871 Census for England, Scotland and Wales has, for the first time, been georeferenced on TheGenealogist. This is the process of linking a record to a geographical spot and means you can now see where a household stood with links to detailed maps on the powerful Map Explorer™. This is set to make investigating the places where ancestors lived in this year even more interesting for family and house historians. 

Viewing a household record from the 1871 census on TheGenealogist will now show a map pinpointing its location. Clicking through from this preview map opens the powerful Map Explorer™ with its georeferenced modern and historical maps. This then enables subscribers to explore their ancestors’ area in much greater detail than on other census sites.

1871 census household pinpointed on Map Explorer™ 

Joining the earlier census releases, which saw the 1911, 1901, 1891 and 1881 census linked up to the powerful mapping tool, researchers can now easily identify with just the click of a button where their forebears had once lived and get a sense of the routes their ancestors used. 

Using these linked maps allows researchers to trace the thoroughfares that ancestors may have walked down as they went shopping, or popped into their local pubs for a drink. Researchers can likewise, work out the routes that their forebears may have taken to get to their nearby churches, or find the shortest way to their places of work and the direction they needed to go in order to reach their nearby park for relaxation. Historical maps can also reveal where the nearest railway station was to their home, important for understanding how our ancestors could have travelled to other parts of the country to see relatives or to visit their hometown.

With this powerful resource, Starter, Gold and Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can look into their ancestors’ neighbourhood from home on their computer screens, or even access the census and the relevant maps on their mobile phone as they walk down the modern streets.

The Greater London Area, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire along with most towns and cities can be viewed down to the property level, while other parts of the country will identify down to the parish, road or street.

Albert Mansions and Albert Hall

In this particular census year, Queen Victoria opened the Royal Albert Hall, Gilbert and Sullivan premiered the first of their light opera collaborations at the Gaiety Theatre in London and a technologically advanced lighthouse was switched on near Tyne and Wear. 

Read TheGenealogist's article “Putting 1871 on the map” to discover more as Nick Thorne takes a look at events in 1871 and brings context to the census records. https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/putting-1871-on-the-map-1673/ 

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 once again expanded its Landowner and Occupier Collection with the release of over 134,000 new Lloyd George Domesday land tax records. This latest addition covers more than 355 square miles of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, including areas around Watford, St Albans, and Hemel Hempstead, and extending up to Luton, Dunstable, and Toddington. The records provide a fascinating insight into the lives of our ancestors, enabling researchers to uncover the owners and occupiers of properties between 1910 and 1915, as well as details about the size, state of repair, and value of their homes.

The Corn Exchange, Luton

The scanned field book pages (IR58) have been meticulously linked to large scale Ordnance Survey maps from the time and are fully searchable by a person's name, county, parish, and street. TheGenealogist's powerful Map Explorer™ tool provides an easy way to switch between georeferenced modern and historical maps, allowing researchers to explore the area and see how it has changed over time.

• Individual property details can be found in these IR58 1910 Valuation Office records
  
• Fully searchable records by a person’s name, county, parish and street
  
• Survey books are linked to large scale maps used in 1910-1915 and viewable on the powerful Map Explorer™ 
  
• The historic OS maps locate individual plots georeferenced to a modern street map or satellite map underlay
  

Area covered by this release of Lloyd George Domesday Records

Included in this release are the IR58 property records for the following areas:

Abbots Langley, Aldbury, Aldenham, Barton, Berkhamsted Rural, Berkhamsted Urban, Billington, Bovingdon, Bushey and Oxhey, Caddington, Chalgrave, Dunstable, Eaton Bray, Eggington, Flamstead, Flaunden, Great Gaddesden, Harpenden, Heath and Reach, Hemel Hempstead, Houghton Regis, Hyde, Kensworth, Kings Langley, Leighton Buzzard, Linslade and Soulbury, Little Gaddesden, Luton, Markyate, Nettleden, Northchurch, Puttenham (Tring Rural), Puttenham (Tring Urban), Redbourn, Rickmansworth and Chorleywood, Ridge, Sarratt, St. Albans, St. Michael, Stanbridge, Streatley, Studham, Sundon, Tilsworth, Toddington, Totternhoe, Tring Urban, Tring Urban (Tring Rural), Watford and Wigginton.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: The “seeds” of the Ryder Cup in Land records for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-seeds-of-the-ryder-cup-in-land-tax-records-for-hertfordshire-1668/ 

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.co.uk has just added over 342,500 new records to the 1939 Register for England and Wales. Researchers can now see all people born in 1922 opened under the 100 year rule along with those who have passed away since the last release. 

TheGenealogist’s version of the 1939 Register is matched to its powerful mapping tool, Map Explorer™ so that researchers can see more accurately where their ancestor’s house was situated on maps down to house, street or parish level, giving more detail than ever before. With its SmartSearch family historians can discover even more from the records in the 1939 Register not just where their ancestors were living as the Second World War began in Britain, but potential birth and death records.

Sir Christopher Lee in the 1939 Register as a 17 year old

TheGenealogist’s unique and powerful search tools and SmartSearch technology offers a hugely flexible way to look for your ancestors at this time. Searching the 1939 Register on TheGenealogist also allows researchers to take advantage of some powerful search tools to break down brick walls. For example there is the ability to find ancestors in 1939 by using keywords, such as the individual’s occupation or their date of birth. Researchers may also search for an address and then jump straight to the household or, if you are struggling to find a family, you can even search using as many of their forenames as you know.

Having discovered a record in the 1939 Register, TheGenealogist then gives its subscribers the ability to click on the street name and so view all the residents in the road. This feature can be used to potentially discover relatives living in the area and can therefore boost your research with just a click.

The 342,543 newly opened records from the 1939 Register, linked to the detailed mapping tool on TheGenealogist, is a tremendous way for family historians to discover where their forebears lived in September 1939.

See TheGenealogist’s article: The “Count” and the Contessa found in the 1939 Register

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/the-count-and-the-contessa-found-in-the-1939-register-1661/ 

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!

The National Archives (TNA) has released almost 600 Cabinet Office files (PREM 49) that cover the period 2000-2002. Some 170 of which can be downloaded from Discovery on TNA's website

The newly released files shed light on a range of subjects both at home and abroad at the time when the government was led by Prime Minister Tony Blair. An example of the types of files that are being released include:

PREM 49/2352 USA. UK/US relations. This file contains a range of material in the wake of the US Presidential election in late 2000 and the victory of George W. Bush as the President.

Also included are files which cover the United Kingdom's relations with other countries including China, Japan, France, and South Africa.

Read more about the release in TNA’s blog: https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/stories-from-home-and-abroad-in-the-cabinet-office-file-release/