Welcome to the Family History Social

Family historians researching Lincolnshire can now explore centuries of parish registers, marriage licences and local histories following a substantial new release from TheGenealogist.

The collection includes digitised publications spanning the Tudor period through to the early 20th century, providing information about the families, churches and communities of Lincolnshire.

Among the newly available parish registers are records for Coleby, Alford and Rigsby, Bourne, Gainsborough, and St Margaret in the Close, Lincoln.

One particularly interesting entry is the baptism of Anne Hutchinson in Alford. The daughter of the Rev. Francis Marbury, Hutchinson later became a prominent religious figure in colonial Massachusetts, where her beliefs brought her into conflict with the authorities.

Another important addition is Lincoln Marriage Licences, 1598–1628, which records couples from communities including Grantham, Spalding and Alford.

The release also includes historical publications exploring Lincolnshire's towns, villages, churches and buildings.

Among them is Notices of the History and Antiquities of Spalding, which provides information about local properties, landowners and events.

These books can help researchers go beyond births, marriages and deaths to discover what life was like in the places their ancestors called home.

The new collections are available through TheGenealogist.

The Great Fire of London transformed the capital in September 1666, destroying thousands of homes and numerous churches. Now, a collection of parish records featuring more than 300,000 individuals offers an opportunity to investigate the London families who lived through this extraordinary period.

Released by TheGenealogist to coincide with the 360th anniversary of the Great Fire, the collection includes registers from historic City of London parishes, including churches affected by the disaster.

Some of these buildings were later rebuilt under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, while others disappeared as parishes were combined during the reconstruction of the City.

Alongside the parish registers, TheGenealogist has added historical publications that provide valuable context for London family history.

These include The Old Churches of London, the Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and all six volumes of Old and New London.

Pepys's famous eyewitness account provides an especially vivid picture of the fire and the destruction it caused.

For family historians, the records can help identify people who lived, married, worshipped and were buried in London's parishes over more than three centuries.

Used together, the parish registers and historical books provide a fascinating way to investigate London ancestors and the changing streets and communities in which they lived.

Do you have Yorkshire ancestors? More than 378,000 names have been added to TheGenealogist in a major collection of historic parish registers.

The release brings together digitised parish register books covering more than 350 years of baptisms, marriages and burials, with some entries dating back to the reign of Henry VIII.

The newly available records cover communities across Yorkshire, including Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate and Knaresborough, as well as numerous smaller towns and villages.

Alongside Anglican parish registers, the collection includes some Nonconformist records, providing additional opportunities to trace families whose religious background may have taken them outside the established church.

Parish registers are among the most important sources for researching ancestors before civil registration. Depending on the period and register, entries may provide information about parents, spouses, occupations and places of residence.

For researchers attempting to trace Yorkshire families back through the generations, these newly digitised publications may help fill gaps in existing research or identify previously unknown relatives.

The original register pages can be searched and viewed through TheGenealogist, offering a valuable resource for anyone investigating Yorkshire's family and local history.

TheGenealogist has added to its Parish Records collections with a second batch of Warwickshire registers in an ongoing project with the Warwickshire County Record Office. These newly transcribed records are linked to high quality images of the original parish register pages.

 

• Over 1,270,000 individuals added to the Parish Records for Warwickshire
• High quality transcripts with original images of the registers
• Additional information such as Witnesses, Father’s Name and Profession have been transcribed where given
• Released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office
• This brings our total for Warwickshire Parish Records to over two million
• Fully searchable parish records with images enable researchers to find ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials

Parish register for Emscote (All Saints) Warwickshire 1868

 

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

 

Read TheGenealogist’s article that reveals how a Warwickshire marriage was key to the career of an 18th century tragic actress: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/warwickshire-parish-records-reveal-the-marriage-of-an-18th-century-tragedienne-800/

 

  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 Burials   Use 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.

  Search these and millions of other records on https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk

 

The 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 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

Well that, sadly, was the last in the series of the UK edition of Who Do You Think You Are? In Wednesday's show we saw Sophie Raworth discover that green fingers ran in her family. There was also a very interesting insight into the Priestly riots against Nonconformists in Birmingham in 1791. Sadly it had a bearing on her ancestors as they migrated to New York in search of a better life. something that was not to be. Read this article here to find out more: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2017/who-do-you-think-you-are/sophie-raworth-471/

  Press Release from TheGenealogist:

What TheGenealogist has in store for 2017 2017 is going to see millions of new records added to TheGenealogist across a wide variety of collections. New Data Sets We are adding millions of new and unique Parish Records and Bishops’ Transcripts are being added for many more counties. A new and unique record set covering detailed records of our ancestors houses, which will be searchable by name, address and area, with high resolution maps showing the property. Our ongoing project with The National Archives is set to release yet more detailed Colour County and Tithe Maps with tags to show where your ancestors lived. We are releasing a 1921 census substitute, using a wide variety of records including Trade and Residential Directories of the time. New decades of BT27 Passenger Lists and Emigration Records will become available. Our International Headstone Project will be expanded with more Commonwealth Cemeteries added. More worldwide War Memorials added to our comprehensive database. Following on from our release of over 230 million U.S. records in 2016, we will be launching more U.S. records in 2017.   New & Improved Census Images Thanks to new technology and new Silver Halide Film provided by The National Archives, we have now been able to re-scan the 1891 census with improved resolution and quality. This combination of improved readability and new transcripts will help locate your ancestors and view the relevant images with a superior grayscale format. Our “Deep Zoom” images have over 5 times the resolution of previous images. They will be lightening fast to view thanks to the  technology used in our new image interface. We will launch these new images in early 2017.   Look out for these exciting new developments and more in 2017 at TheGenealogist.co.uk  

You may need to be quick, but here is a great special offer we spotted this week. Makes a great gift for family historians!

Save 40% on the Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers

This guide to parish registers, now in its third edition, and covering England, Scotland and Wales, is a vital, time-saving tool that has become universally known as 'the genealogist's bible'. The Atlas includes the famous county 'parish' maps, which show pre-1832 parochial boundaries, colour-coded probate jurisdictions, starting dates of surviving registers, and churches and chapels, where relevant. Topographical maps face each 'parish' map, and show the contemporary road system and other local features, to help deduce the likely movement of people beyond the searcher's starting point. The Index lists the parishes, with grid references to the county maps. It indicates the present whereabouts of original registers and copies, and whether a parish is included in other indexes. It also gives registration districts and census information. Thus, in this invaluable guide, the user may quickly find answers to such questions as: Have the registers been deposited? Where may they be found? What outside dates do they cover? Have they been copied or indexed and by whom? Get your copy for £29.95 http://genealogysupplies.com/offer-of-the-week/

A collection of over half a million unique Parish Records has been added to leading family history website, TheGenealogist. These cover the counties of Essex, Kent, Leicestershire, Monmouthshire and Worcestershire. The new online records offer invaluable records of baptisms, marriages and burials dating from the 1500s to the late 1800s from Anglican parish registers. The records are a great tool for those people looking to track down early ancestors before civil registration. The latest releases bring the total to over 2 million parish records already added in 2014 with more to come. Fully searchable and clearly transcribed on TheGenealogist, they provide hundreds of years of records helping you find those early ancestors to further extend your family tree. Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content at TheGenealogist remarked:   ”With Parish and Nonconformist Records it is possible to go back so much further and you never know what new surprises or dramatic events you may uncover in the records. We are continually adding more records to our already extensive collection throughout 2014.”