TheGenealogist has added over 1.1 million individuals to its parish record collection covering the county of Sussex. Published In association with The Parish Record Transcription Society, this first tranche of records will be followed by more releases in the near future. This New release covers individual records of:
717,000 Baptisms
213,000 Marriages
208,000 Burials
The Parish Record Transcription Society (PRTSoc) have worked with TheGenealogist and S&N to publish their records online, making over 1.1 million individuals from baptism, marriage and burial records fully searchable: "We are very pleased to be working with TheGenealogist on this major project, previously undertaken to transcribe the parish registers of West Sussex by the staff and dedicated volunteers of the PRTSoc. This will preserve these records for future generations and brings them into the online community." Peter Steward, Chairman of PRTSocMark Bayley, Head of Online Development at TheGenealogist, welcomed PRTSoc to the growing number family history societies on both TheGenealogist and FHS-Online saying: “We’re delighted that PRTSoc chose to publish their records through TheGenealogist and FHS-Online. This release adds to the ever expanding collection of parish records on both websites. These partnerships help fund societies whilst bringing their records to a much wider audience, through online publication.”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-sussex-parish-records-reveal-a-grizzly-end-646/If your society is interested in publishing records online, please contact Mark Bayley on 01722 717002 or see fhs-online.co.uk/about.php
TheGenealogist has enlarged its Court & Criminal Records collection so thateven more black sheep ancestors can now be searched for and found on its site. With a new release of records you can unearth all sorts of ancestors who came up against the law - whether they were a victim, acquitted, convicted of a minor offence or found guilty of a major crime such as murder. These fully searchable records cover HO77 - The Home Office: Criminal Registers, England and Wales and ADM 6 - The Registers of Convicts in Prison Hulks Cumberland, Dolphin and Ganymede with indexes from The National Archives.
Uniquely this release allows you the ability to search for victims of the crime (Over 132,000)
Hunt for people using their name or alias, or look for an offence
See images of the pages from the books and registers that reveal even more fascinating information about the individual
As these records cover a vast range of transgressions we are able to find men and women who stole small items such as shirts, potatoes, boots etc. We can also discover people who had married bigamously, forged money, uttered a counterfeit half-crown, burgled, murdered or were accused of many more other crimes. One example of a number of unusual offences found in TheGenealogist’s new release, is that of Christian Crane, tried in February 1811 - ‘Being a person of evil fame and a reputed thief’ was adjudged to be ‘a rogue and vagabond’.These records, joining those already available within TheGenealogist’s Court & Criminal collection, will reveal the sentence of the court handed out to our ancestors. Judgements can be seen to vary massively from a fine, a short imprisonment in Newgate, a public whipping, a longer spell inside, or the ultimate sanction of death.
Other ancestors were sentenced to be ‘transported beyond the seas’ and TheGenealogist already has many registers of convicts sent to Australia between 1787 and 1867. Joining them in this new release are the ADM 6 records for convicts who were waiting to begin their voyage to the penal colonies in Australia and were locked up on a number of Prison Hulks.You can search for your lawless ancestor at www.thegenealogist.co.ukOr see their article:https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/criminal-records-discover-black-sheep-ancestors-621/
Information just in from the team at TheGenealogist announces that it has extended its UK Parish Records collection with a new and exclusive release of 650,000 parish records for Nottinghamshire. These records can be used to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover parishes from this important East Midland county of England. With records that reach back to1633, this release includes the records of 56 parishes, including:369,100 individuals in Baptisms, 168,000 individuals in Marriages and 112,800 individuals in BurialsYou can use these transcripts to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where noted), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, and in the case of marriage records the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names.
Lord Byron
Amongst the notable Nottinghamshire people that can be found in these records are the infamous Lord Byron and his brilliant mathematician daughter Ada, Countess of Lovelace. Both are buried in the parish of Hucknal Torkard. As well as nobility, in this collection we also come across the baptism of Amos Hind. He was famous for playing First Class Cricket for the neighbouring county of Derbyshire between 1876 and 1877. Amos died aged 82 in 1931.TheGenealogist says "These additions bring our Nottinghamshire parish record collection to over 919,800 records." To search these records and many more see TheGenealogist.co.ukRead their article: https://www.thegenealogist.com/featuredarticles/2017/a-poet-a-mathematician-and-a-first-class-cricketer-596/Parishes covered in this release are:
TheGenealogist has just released a new circa 1921 resource, covering 23 counties, with over one million records. These formpart of the Trade, Residential & Telephone record sets on TheGenealogist covering a period currently not served by a census.
The fully transcribed, searchable records released today will allow researchers to:
search on forename, surname and profession
search by street, town and county
look for a business name
discover your ancestors’ addresses
find professions listed
These 1921 directories cover the North, South, East and the West of England, the Channel Islands and as far up the country as Aberdeen. If you have ancestors who you are tracing in 1921, this new release from TheGenealogist adds a fantastic name rich resource to your family history research armoury.Searching for householders within these 23 newly released county directories returns a good number of names from that time, including many that are still famous today.For example, in these new records we can find Harry Gordon Selfridge, founder of Selfridge's department store; Jesse Boot, who was behind the chemist chain that still carries his name; Winnie-the-Pooh’s author A. A. Milne; J.M. Barrie, who created the characters of Peter Pan and Wendy; plus the celebrated economist, John Maynard Keynes. You can read more about finding them in the records in our featured article at: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/addressing-where-they-were-in-1921-571/The areas covered in this release include:
Aberdeen
Bath
Berkshire
Bradford and Surrounding Districts
Bristol and Suburberbs
Brixton and Clapham
Buckinghamshire
Cambridgeshire
Channel Islands
Cheshire
Cumberland
Dorset
Durham
Hessle
Hull
Lincolnshire
London
London County Suburbs
Middlesbrough
Norfolk
Northumberland
Oxfordshire
Somerset
Suffolk
Westmorland
Wiltshire
Worcestershire
Yorkshire
TheGenealogist says that they will be adding further counties in the coming months.
TheGenealogist has expanded its UK Parish Records collection with the release of over 1,363,000 new records for Northumberland. These records make it easier to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover the ancient parishes of the northernmost county of England. Some of the records can take you as far back as 1560.In this release you can find the records of:903,314 individuals in Baptisms, 157,329 individuals in Marriages and 302,378 individuals in BurialsUse these records to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where given), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, in the case of marriage records, the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names.In these records you can find Grace Horsley Darling, the famous lighthouse keeper’s daughter who saved the crew from a shipwrecked paddle steamer. She was born on 24th November 1815, at her grandfather's cottage in Bamburgh in Northumberland and was baptised the following month. Grace was the daughter of William and Thomasine Darling who, when only a few weeks old, was taken to live in a small cottage attached to the lighthouse on Brownsman Island, one of the Farne Islands off the coast of Northumberland. Her father ran the lighthouse there and she is famed for participating in the rescue of survivors from the shipwrecked paddle steamer Forfarshire in 1838.It was carrying sixty two people when it foundered on the rocks, split in two, the survivors managed to clamber onto Big Harcar a rocky island and were spotted by Grace looking from an upstairs window. She and her father rowed out in a four man boat for a distance of about a mile and between them rescued the nine survivors.
TheGenealogist releases York Colour Tithe Maps and Yorkshire Directories.
Parish of St Cuthbert’s York tithe map
For example, if we wanted to find the plot where one William Gibb lived in the parish of St Cuthbert during 1845 we can do this by selecting Tithe & Landowner on TheGenealogist and then enter his name into the Master Search. In William’s case he was the occupier while his landlady was Ann Wilson and we can see from the description in the Apportionment book that he rented a house and gardens from her. The value is small and the Rector is only entitled to 6d tithe rent from the plot. This is in contrast to another example that we can find in the York tithes.
The Freemen of Micklegate Ward of the City of York appear as landowners and occupiers in the tithe records for the Parish of Middlethorpe
We are able to see an image of the apportionment book and this reveals in the description that the land is ‘Part of Knavesmire a stinted pasture’.
A 'stint' or 'gait' being a pasture that is limited to a certain number of animals. A person who has the right to graze their sheep or cattle on the stinted pasture may allow a fixed number of their livestock to feed there. Each grazier holds a certain number of stints and a formula will be in force that calculates the different value of each type of livestock. So one stint could equal one ewe with her lamb, while four stints may equal one horse.
The York Race Course at Knavesmire on a tithe map from 1838
Anyone visiting the racecourse, whether it is for the family history show or to watch the races, can’t help but notice the old Terry’s Chocolate Factory next door. This art deco style facility, which no longer manufactures chocolate, was built in 1926. The company has, however, a long and rich history connected to York and by searching within one of the twenty three Yorkshire Trade, Residential and Telephone directories that have also been released by TheGenealogist this month, we can find the listing for the company. If an ancestor had a business then the commerical listings in the directory can help us find where they may have worked. In the 1897 Kelly’s York Directory we can find Joseph Terry & Sons Limited, manufacturing confectioners and see that at that time they had factories at Clementhorpe and at St Helen’s Square in York. The later address being where the family business had started and Clementhorpe was the factory on the River Ouse that allowed them to better distribute their products and import the raw materials - this move allowed Terry’s to really take off as a confectioner. We can, likewise, find the competing company of H.J. Rowntree & Co. within the same directory. It shows us that Rowntree’s had their business premises at Haxley Road and Tanner’s Moat.
Directories can also be useful to find the addresses of residents, the railways that served the area and read about communications links to other towns. These may be of help to the family historian who has ‘lost’ an ancestor as they could suggest where a person may have travelled and can be a great compliment to a census record. In the case of a head of the household we may be able to find an address different from that recorded in the decennial census. This may help fill in the gaps of where a stray ancestor moved to between the census. It can also add to our understanding of the place where our ancestors lived.
Sir Joseph Terry had been the Lord Mayor of York and in the year of this directory, 1897, he is still listed as an alderman and a magistrate. Similarly, John Stephenson Rowntree had been a past Lord Mayor and he too was an alderman and magistrate in this year. The 1897 Kelly’s York Directory reveals that they both lived at Mount Villas on The Mount; from this we can work out that they were close neighbours in York. The racecourse is also listed in this publication as having an address of Knavesmire, The Mount and so in the same area of the city.
The 1897 Kelly's York Directory just released on TheGenealogist
TheGenealogist’s National Tithe Record Collection covers all counties of England and Wales and so can be used to find where your English and Welsh ancestors lived at the time that this great survey took place between 1837 and the mid 1850s. The Trade, Residential & Telephone directories also encompass the whole country and can be useful both as research tool and as a valuable insight into the lives of our ancestors. They are a useful resource for tracing ancestors, particularly if they had a distinctive trade and can be used as a census substitute for the years prior to 1841 or after 1911 and also to provide information on their whereabouts between census years.
To search for your ancestors using these and the enormous number of other records on TheGenealogist read more at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk
Douglas Fairbanks Jr travelling with his mother and stepfather 11 June 1921Researching in the passenger lists of this 1920s period of sea travel throws up many other famous names of the times. The 25 year old Harry G. Selfridge Jr, son of the founder of the London department store Selfridges, is one. We can also find the war poet Siegfried L. Sassoon and from the top ranks of the British Army there is Field Marshal Haig and Lt General Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. Turning to the world of politics we come across David Lloyd George, the Liberal politician who became the wartime Prime Minister. Here he is travelling with his wife, Dame Margaret and their daughter Megan who would herself go on to become the first female M.P. for a Welsh constituency. By using TheGenealogist’s unique SmartSearch feature we can identify the family members travelling together on a voyage by clicking on the family icon.On a voyage to Gibraltar in April 1927 we can find the 63 year old widow, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, the one time leader of the Suffragette movement. Without Mrs Pankhurst and her fellow suffragettes campaigning for the right for women to have the vote, then Megan Lloyd George would not have even been able to cast her ballot, let alone have had the right to stand for election to the House of Commons.
Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst London to Gibraltar 8th April 1927 on the P&O ship NalderaThere are numerous authors to be found in these records. In February 1926 Hilaire Belloc, who was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century, made the short hop across the channel from Southampton to Cherbourg. The 55 year old was onboard the Orduna, a vessel of The Royal Mail Steam Packet company on its way to New York. Belloc gave his address as The Reform Club SW1, but for others the passenger lists can reveal the details of an ancestor’s home address before they travelled - information which can be very useful when there is no census to consult for the time period in question. For example, the entry for the 21 year old Noel Coward, travelling on the Southampton to New York run of Cunard’s Aquitania that left on the 4th June 1921 - Coward gave his address as 111 Ebury Street London. This was the premises that his parents ran as a lodging house and it was where he kept a room while he travelled abroad. It was also the address where he wrote The Vortex, his first notable successful play. His occupation on the passenger list for June 1921 was that of an Actor. In later transatlantic crossings, however, he is sometimes recorded as a Dramatist, an Author and as a Playwright.
Arthur Conan Doyle and family travelling on the Olympic to New York 28 March 1923Passenger lists are certainly fascinating documents that can reveal our ancestors overseas voyages and so help add detail to the stories of their lives. They can also be used to clarify where people have gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, as it is all levels of society that can be found in these records. This particular decade seems also to be very rich in the names of the famous as they departed from U.K. ports on their overseas travels.
See these and many more fascinating family history records at TheGenealogist.
It is very sad news to have come out of Immediate Media in the past day. They have announced that the annual Who Do You Think You Are? Live show will not return. This was one of the largest family history event that attracted thousands of family historians to browse the stands and attend the various talks each year.
Who Do You Think You Are? Live NEC Birmingham
After ten years, first at Olympia in London and then at the NEC in Birmingham for the last three of those years, the event that took place at the beginning of April this year was the last ever!
Who Do You Think You Are? Live was previously held at Olympia in London
The organisers say it was due to financial reasons that they are bowing out and so we must assume that the show, while popular with family historians of all abilities, just couldn't make them money.
I am sure that we shall all miss the event, but perhaps it was just too large a venue.
While it is sad that it has gone there are always other more manageable family history shows to visit, including those up an coming in Yorkshire and the London area being organised by Discover Your Ancestors Magazine and sponsored by TheGenealogist.
There will be FREE talks from a number of experts, to discover more see the talks page on their website: http://yorkshirefamilyhistoryfair.com/free-talks.php
Do you really know who you are? Come and find out – you may be surprised!
Register of Voters for the Borough of Wakefield 1837 on TheGenealogistThe records cover 35 different registers of people who were entitled to vote in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and other constituencies situated in Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset and New Westminster in Canada. These have been added to our Poll and Electoral Roll collection covering millions of records.At the same time TheGenealogist continues to expand its vast Parish Record collections with the addition of 100,000 new individuals added for the County of Worcestershire and additionally the Registers of the Parish Church of Rochdale in Lancashire that covers the period between 1642 and 1700.Also being released at this time are some records that will take the researcher all the way back to ancient times! The Roll of Mayors of the Borough and Lord Mayors of the City of Leicester records the names of men holding that office from between the 10th year of the reign of King John in 1209 and all through history to 1935.
The first Mayor listed in the Roll of Mayors of the Borough and Lord Mayors of the City of LeicesterThe Worcestershire Parish Records were added through a partnership with Malvern FHS while the electoral records are taken from the official lists produced to record who was entitled to vote in the various parliamentary elections. To search these and many other records on TheGenealogist, go to: www.thegenealogist.co.uk
With exhibitors from all over the UK and Ireland, this is probably the largest event of its kind in England. Many family history societies and companies attend each year. There is lots of local history from the York area too.
You don't have to have Yorkshire Ancestors to come to this fair - they can be from anywhere at all! Everyone is very welcome and there is lots to see. There is plenty of parking and refreshments are available all day. There are several lifts to take you to the upper levels, and the whole place is wheelchair friendly.
There will be FREE talks from a number of experts, to discover more see the talks page on their website: http://yorkshirefamilyhistoryfair.com/free-talks.php
The Yorkshire Family History Fair is run by Discover Your Ancestors Magazine and sponsored by TheGenealogist
Do you really know who you are? Come and find out - you may be surprised!
Saturday 24th June 2017
10am to 4.30pm
The Knavesmire Exhibition Centre, The Racecourse, York, YO23 1EX
Admission: Adults £4.80, Children under 14 FREE
To get your tickets go to: http://yorkshirefamilyhistoryfair.com/
