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News from The National Archives -  Free Talk 23 August 2018

 

This talk will assess the role played by Lord Fairfax, the commander-in-chief of the New Model Army, in securing victory for Parliament in the South-East of England during the Second Civil War.

The talk will include a discussion of Fairfax’s controversial role in the bloody siege of Colchester, encompassing why parliamentarian retribution was more severe in Essex than in Kent. It will also reflect on the political consequences of this military campaign in creating conditions favourable towards placing Charles I on trial for his life. There will also be an original document display.

Dr Andrew Hopper (University of Leicester) is the author of Black Tom: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution, and co-editor of England’s Fortress: New Perspectives on Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax.

 

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.

Please note: TNA will be introducing charges in our visitor car park later in 2018. Follow the link for further information

 

TheGenealogist is releasing the second part of its exciting new record set, The Lloyd George Domesday Survey. This major new release can be used to find where an ancestor lived in 1910 in the area around Barnet, Edgware, Finchley, Friern Barnet, Hendon and Totteridge. 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 and exceptionally detailed hand annotated maps that indicates the exact property.

 

 

Researchers often can’t find where ancestors lived as road names changed over time, the Blitz saw areas bombed to destruction, developers changed sites out of all resemblance from what had stood there before and lanes and roads were extinguished to build estates and office blocks. All this means that searching for where an ancestor lived using a website linked to modern maps can be frustrating when they fail to pinpoint where the old properties had once been.

 

• TheGenealogist’s new release will link individual properties to extremely detailed ordnance survey maps used in 1910

 

• Shows the original Field book often giving a detailed description of the property

 

• Locate an address found in a census or street directory down to a specific house on the map

 

• Fully searchable by name, parish and street.

 

• The maps will zoom down to show the individual properties as they existed in 1910

 

Image of an IR58 Field Book

 

 

The Star Hotel, Barnet High Street

 

Complementing the maps on TheGenealogist are the accompanying Field Books that will also provide researchers with detailed information relative to the valuation of each property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent.

 

This mammoth project is ongoing with over 94,500 Field Books, each having hundreds of pages to digitise with associated large scale IR121 annotated OS maps. This second release from TheGenealogist includes these more detailed IR58 Field Books which feature more information about the properties that have been surveyed.

 

The release this month, covers Barnet, Edgware, Finchley, Friern Barnet, Hendon and Totteridge, just to the south of Hertfordshire. These join the City of London and Paddington Index and maps already released. More areas are coming soon for other London Boroughs and the county of Buckinghamshire.

 

Find out more at: TheGenealogist.co.uk/1910Survey/ where you can read about how the Lloyd George Domesday Survey finds the Baronet of Barnet:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/lloyd-george-domesday-survey-finds-the-baronet-of-barnet-906/

 

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/

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!

About The National Archives

The National Archives is one of the world’s most valuable resources for research and an independent research organisation in its own right. As the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and England and Wales they are the guardians of some of the UK's most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years. Their role is to collect and secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. The National Archives brings together the skills and specialisms needed to conserve some of the oldest historic documents as well as leading digital archive practices to manage and preserve government information past, present and future.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

 

For the latest stories, follow the Media Team on Twitter @TNAmediaofficer

Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Public Records Act (PRA) 1958.

This Act introduced a new system of reviewing, selecting and transferring of records which continues to this day.

The National Archives posted a link on their facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/TheNationalArchives/) for anyone that wants to learn more about TNA’s duties under this Act: http://socsi.in/m6opG

 

TheGenealogist has added to its Criminal Records collections with the release of the Metropolitan Police Criminal Records Office: Habitual Criminals Registers and the Habitual Drunkards Registers.

 

These are high quality transcripts with original colour images of the registers, as well as registers created by the Police to supervise released criminals.

One of the most interesting features of these records are the photographic portraits taken from the Registers of Habitual Drunkards. These feature two photographs - face on and profile - per individual, and some records may also give distinguishing features. The Habitual Drunkards Registers were distributed to licensed premises and the secretaries of clubs to prevent the convicted person from buying alcohol.

• Entries contain a description of the individual and date of discharge from prison
• Some records may also give distinguishing features of the individual
• See face on and profile Photographs of habitual drunks.
• It may also give the name of the prison, length of sentence and previous convictions.
• Includes registers created by the Police to supervise released criminals including spies!

These new records from The National Archive’s MEPO 6 are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

 

The Criminal Records on TheGenealogist could reveal the darker side of your family tree. Read TheGenealogist’s article:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/criminal-records-on-thegenealogist-could-reveal-the-darker-side-of-your-family-tree-816/

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!

About The National Archives

The National Archives is one of the world’s most valuable resources for research and an independent research organisation in its own right. As the official archive and publisher for the UK government, and England and Wales they are the guardians of some of the UK's most iconic national documents, dating back over 1,000 years. Their role is to collect and secure the future of the government record, both digital and physical, to preserve it for generations to come, and to make it as accessible and available as possible. The National Archives brings together the skills and specialisms needed to conserve some of the oldest historic documents as well as leading digital archive practices to manage and preserve government information past, present and future.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

 

 

For the latest stories, follow the Media Team on Twitter @TNAmediaofficer

 

f you have ever looked at an old document and been unable to read the old script then you may be interested in a fascinating post on The National Archive’s blog about software that is being developed to read old handwritten documents.

A 1496 Prerogative Court of Canterbury Will from TNA retrieved from TheGenealogist’s online collection of Will documents

 The National Archives (TNA) points out the revolution  that optical character recognition (OCR) technology has made reading printed words written in books, newspapers and some archival documents.  But OCR does not work on handwritten documents. It is for this reason that TNA say that they are excited by the new platform called Transkribus, developed by the EU funded READ Project. It will offer, for the first time, the potential to use computers to ‘read’ handwritten documents.

See TNA’s blog post on their website here: http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog/machines-reading-the-archive-handwritten-text-recognition-software/

TheGenealogist has added Colour Tithe Maps from The National Archives to their National Tithe Records collection. With this release researchers can see the plots owned or occupied by ancestors that lived in this ‘home county’ at the time of the survey in the 19th century.

The new data includes:

• Over 40,000 Plots of Land covering the years from 1837 to 1855 with some much later plans of altered apportionments
• Joining the apportionment record books and the previously published greyscale maps

These tagged colour maps and their fully searchable tithe schedule records are from those held at The National Archives. The collection gives the family history researcher the ability to search by name and keyword (for example parish or county) to look for all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of tiny plots such as a cottage or a cowshed.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/buckinghamshires-colour-tithe-maps-online-748/

TheGenealogist has added 651,369 quarterly returns of convicts from The National Archives’ HO 8 documents to their Court & Criminal Records collection. With this release researchers can find the details of ancestors that broke the law and were incarcerated in convict hulks and prisons in the 19th century.

Prisoners on the hulks from The Illustrated London News on TheGenealogist

The new data includes:

• 651,369 Records covering the years 1824 to 1854
• Quarterly returns from Convict Hulks, Convict Prisons and Criminal Lunatic Asylums

 

These fully searchable records are from the The Home Office: Sworn lists of convicts on board the convict hulks and in the convict prisons (HO 8). They give the family history researcher fascinating facts that include the particulars of age, convictions, sentences, health and behaviour of the convict, as well as which court sentenced them and where they were serving their sentence.

Read TheGenealogist’s article “Criminal records of convicts on the Hulks” at:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2018/criminal-records-of-convicts-on-the-hulks-739/

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.

  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/

Image source: © TheGenealogist © Crown copyright images reproduced courtesy of The National Archives, London, England

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  

The National Archives has an interesting number of podcasts and webinars. Head over to: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ One that is being publicised at the moment is by Tracy Borman who reveals how the Tudor monarchs were constantly surrounded by an army of attendants, courtiers and ministers, even in their most private moments. A groom of the stool would stand patiently by as Henry VIII performed his daily purges, and when Elizabeth I retired for the evening, one of her female servants would sleep at the end of her bed. Dr Tracy Borman is a historian, author and joint Chief Curator for Historic Royal Palaces. Her books include the highly acclaimed ‘Elizabeth’s Women: the Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen’; ‘Matilda: Queen of the Conqueror’; and ‘Witches: A Tale of Sorcery, Scandal and Seduction’. Her latest book is ‘The Private Lives of the Tudors’, published by Hodder & Stoughton.