Welcome to the Family History Social

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/ 

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!

More than 185,000 new Lloyd George Domesday land tax records have been added by TheGenealogist to its Landowner and Occupier records. Consisting of records from the counties of Berkshire and the Buckinghamshire, this release provides researchers with the ability to discover owners and occupiers of property in the period 1910 to 1915.

Covering an area of over 800 square miles, researchers can use these records to see the size, state of repair and value of the house in which their ancestors had been the landlord of, or had lived in. 

IR126 Map of Ascot on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ 

TheGenealogist has linked all the records to the large scale Ordnance Survey maps that were used at the time.These detailed maps show each property plotted on detailed mapping that can be viewed with TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ tool. This interface will show the same coordinates on a variety of modern and historical maps. Using this allows house or family historians to see how the area they are researching may have changed over time and with it to then explore their ancestors' locality.

• Details of Individual properties can be found in these Lloyd George Domesday records
  

• Records are linked to extremely detailed maps used in 1910-1915 and viewable on the powerful Map Explorer™ 
  

• Ability to fully search the records by a person’s name, county, parish and street
  

• The Ordnance Survey maps zoom down to show individual properties
  

• Georeferenced to a modern street map or satellite map underlay the researcher can more clearly understand what the area looks like today
  

Areas covered in this release include:

Aldermaston, Aldworth, Amersham, Arborfield, Ardington, Ashampstead, Ashley Green, Barkham, Basildon, Beaconsfield, Beech Hill, Beedon, Beenham, Binfield, Bisham, Bledlow, Blewbury, Boveney, Boxford, Bradenham, Bradfield, Bray, Brightwalton, Brimpton, Buckland, Bucklebury, Burghfield, Burnham, Catmore, Caversham, Chaddleworth, Chalfont St Giles, Chalfont St Peter, Challow (East and West), Charlton, Chenies, Chepping Wycombe, Chesham, Chieveley, Childrey, Chilton, Cholesbury, Clewer Within, Clewer Without, Cold Ash, Compton, Cookham, Crowthorne, Datchet, Denchworth, Denham, Donnington, Earley, East Garston, East Ilsley, East Lockinge, East Shefford, Easthampstead, Ellesborough, Enborne, Englefield, Eton, Farnborough, Farnham Royal, Fawley, Fawley, Fawley, Finchhampstead, Fingest, Frilsham, Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Goosey, Grazeley, Great Coxwell, Great Missenden, Greenham, Grove, Hambleden, Hampden (Great and Little), Hampstead Marshall, Hampstead Norris, Hanney (East and West), Harwell, Hawridge, Hedgerley, Hedsor, Hendred (East and West), High Wycombe, Hitcham, Horsenden, Horton, Hungerford, Hurley, Ibstone, Ilmer, Inkpen, Iver, Kimble (Great and Little), Kintbury, Lambourn, Langley, Leckhampstead, Lee, Letcombe Bassett, Letcombe Regis, Little Marlow, Little Missenden, Maidenhead, Marlow, Medmenham, Midgham, Mortimer, New Windsor, Newbury, Newland, Old Windsor, Pangbourne, Peasemore, Penn, Princes Risborough, Remenham, Ruscombe, Sandhurst, Saunderton, Shaw, Shinfield, Shottesbrook, Slough, Slough, Sparsholt, Speen, St Giles, St Lawrence, St Mary, St Nicholas Hurst, Stanford Dingley, Streatley, Sunningdale, Sunninghill, Swallowfield, Taplow, Thatcham, Theale, Tilehurst, Towersey, Turville, Twyford, Upton, Waltham St Lawrence, Wantage, Warfield, Wargrave, Welford, West Ilsley, West Shefford, West Woodhay, White Waltham, Winkfield, Winnersh, Winterbourne, Wokingham, Wooburn, Woolhampton & Yattendon

Read TheGenealogist’s article: To the Cottage Born https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/to-the-cottage-born-1645/ 

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!

Where did my ancestors live? Were the shops, churches and pubs nearby? 

These questions and more are now easier than ever to answer using TheGenealogist. This online family history website has just linked all of its 1881 census records of England, Scotland and Wales to its powerful Map Explorer™ so that users can see the locations of houses plotted on georeferenced historic and modern map layers.

Uniquely on TheGenealogist viewing a household record from the 1881 census will now show a map pinpointing its location. Clicking on this pin opens Map Explorer™, enabling subscribers to explore the area and see the records of neighbouring properties.

With this new release family and house historians are able to research the streets, lanes and neighbourhoods in which their ancestors had lived at the time of the 1881 census. Joining earlier releases that saw the 1911, 1901 and 1891 census linked to the powerful mapping tool, researchers can easily identify with just the click of a button, where their forebears had once lived. 

With properties plotted on a map researchers can see the routes their ancestors could have used to get to the shops, drop into their local pubs, worship at their nearby churches, travel to their places of work and relax with a walk in the nearby park. Historical maps make it possible to find 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 visit their hometown.

Using this powerful resource, Starter, Gold and Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can investigate their ancestors’ neighbourhood from home on their computer screens, or even access the census and the relevant maps on their mobile phone while walking down the modern streets.

The majority of the London area and other 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.

Charles Darwin’s home, Downe House

See TheGenealogist’s article: Darwin at Downe

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/darwin-at-downe-1637/ 

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 Crystal Palace, Penge, in the Bromley Valuation Office records

More than 109,000 new IR58 Valuation Office land tax records for owners and occupiers have been added by TheGenealogist to its Lloyd George Domesday Survey records. 

Researchers can now discover all types of interesting details about the homes of their ancestors from the Lewisham and Bromley areas. Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can find what their forebears' property was like in the years before WWI using the scanned images of the field books. These documents reveal what the surveyor from the years between 1910 and 1915 recorded about the size, state of repair and value of the house.

Detail from a Field Book from Lewisham Valuation Office area

As all the records are linked to the large scale Ordnance Survey maps that were used at the time, each property is shown plotted on detailed mapping on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™. This exceptionally useful tool, with its ability to show the same point on a variety of modern and historical maps, allows the house or family historian to see how the area may have changed over time and to explore their ancestors' locality.

In the case of this release we can see how in Bromley the Crystal Palace was still standing in fine parkland with fountains and other features. The Palace, having burnt down in the 1930s, its footprint is today given over to trees and grass on the modern map views. Across the road from its entrance had been a railway station in 1910 which today has subsequently been completely built over with new homes.

Lloyd George Domesday Survey linked map on Map Explorer™ 

• TheGenealogist’s Lloyd George Domesday records link individual properties to extremely detailed maps used in 1910-1915 viewed on the powerful Map Explorer™ 
  
• Fully search the records by person’s name, county, parish and street
  
• Maps zoom down to show individual properties where they were plotted in the 1910s
  
• Georeferenced to a modern street map or satellite map underlay to more clearly understand what the area looks like today
  

Total number of Owners and Occupiers in the current release: 109,177

Areas covered in Lewisham (63,451 Owners and Occupiers): Blackheath, Brockley, Catford, Deptford North, Deptford South, Forest Hill, Hatcham, Lee, Lewisham, Lower Sydenham and Upper Sydenham.

Areas released for Bromley (45,726 Owners and Occupiers): Beckenham, Bromley, Chelsfield, Chislehurst, Mottingham, Orpington, Penge, St Mary Cray

Read TheGenealogist’s article: From a Crystal Palace to the home of a Lord Mayor embroiled in scandal https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/from-a-crystal-palace-to-the-home-of-a-lord-mayor-embroiled-in-scandal-1593/ 

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!

All English Tithe Maps are now georeferenced to modern and historic maps

Family historians can now search the complete National Tithe Record Collection for England and view their ancestors’ land and homes plotted through the ages on Victorian Tithe maps, as well as on today's Modern Street and Satellite maps. 

TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™, which has seen a number of records added in recent months, will now also benefit from the inclusion of Tithe Maps and Records for five extra counties of England. With Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Nottinghamshire and Sussex joining those that had previously been released means that TheGenealogist now has all of the English counties’ Tithe Records and Maps available to its Diamond subscribers on Map Explorer™. 

Map Explorer™ georeferences a Tithe Plot to various historical and modern maps

Tithe records cover the majority of the country and were created by the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act which required tithes in kind to be converted to monetary payments called tithe rentcharge. The Tithe Survey was established to find out which areas were subject to tithes, who owned them, who occupied the various parcels of land, the usage of the land, how much was payable and to whom and so generated these maps and apportionment books.

With Map Explorer™ researchers have the ability to pinpoint a record to the exact same coordinates on various historical and modern maps. Family and house historians are therefore able to see where an ancestor’s land plot was throughout the eras, even when the landscape has completely changed over the years.

• Total number of maps in this release is 1,310
• Total pins on georeferenced plots added in this release is 673,352
• Map Explorer™ now has a total number of 11,804 georeferenced Tithe maps to view
• 5,202,983 georeferenced parcels of tithable land are now on Map Explorer™, indicated by map pins

Tithes usefully record all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of small plots, such as a homestead or similar, as we discover in this weeks’ case study. 

See TheGenealogist’s article: Plotting A Victorian Farmer’s Home Over Time

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/plotting-a-victorian-farmers-home-over-time-1587/ 

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!

Family historians with an aristocratic ancestor in their family tree will be pleased to hear that TheGenealogist has just significantly boosted the number of records in its Peerage, Gentry and Royalty collection. While many family history researchers believe that their forebears were simply ordinary folk, it turns out that many of us can find a link to a family that has a published pedigree. We only have to look at how Danny Dyer or Josh Widdecombe discovered their Royal and Aristocratic ancestors in their episodes of the Who Do You Think You Are? UK TV series. 

While this relationship to the upper levels of society may be as a result of an illegitimate line, nonetheless a link to an ancestor that features in a pedigree is of huge help in tracing back many generations, as much of the work has been done for you by the compilers of the records.

Heraldic visitations, one of the records to be included in this release, were tours of inspection undertaken by Kings of Arms throughout England, Wales and Ireland. Their purpose was to register and regulate the coats of arms of nobility, gentry and boroughs, and to record pedigrees. A number of later books, while they can not precisely be described as Heralds Visitations, provide similar information and can likewise help the researcher to populate their family tree back through the ages and are also in this record release.

This latest release covers the following searchable book records:

Armorial Families, Arms Authorized by The Laws of Heraldry 1863, Boyle’s court guide  1888, Burke’s Handbook to the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire 1921, Burke’s Landed Gentry Volume 1886, Debretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1887, Encyclopedia of Heraldry or General Armory of England Scotland and Ireland 1844, Genealogica Bedfordienses Landed Gentry of Bedfordshire 1538-1700, Grantees of Arms to The End of The XVII Century, Herefordshire Visitation Of 1569, His Majesty the King 1910-1935, Imperial British Calendar 1823, Index Nominum to the Royalist Composition Papers, Kelly’s Handbook To The Titled Landed and Official Classes 1909, Landed Gentry of Bedfordshire 1538-1700, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica - Third Series Vol IIIV, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica - Third Series Vol IV, Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica Fourth Series Vol II 1908, Nottingham Visitation 1569 and 1614, Short View of the Peerage of Ireland 1759, Standing Council of the Baronetage Official Roll of the Baronets 1929, Suffolk Visitations of 1561 1577 1612, Sussex Visitations 1530 and 1633-4, The Pedigree Register for London 1907-1915, The Peerage of Ireland 1754, The Royal Kalendar 1786, The Royal Kalendar 1788, The Royal Kalendar 1796, The Royal Kalendar 1804, The Royal Kalendar 1820, Webster’s Royal Red Book Court and Fashionable Register January 1915, Worcestershire Visitation 1569

Read TheGenealogist’s article: The Castle Ruin and its connection to the Australian ‘King’

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/the-castle-ruin-and-its-connection-to-the-australian-king-1530/ 

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’s latest release of transcripts of RAF ORBs provide the most complete collection of indexed AIR 27 records

TheGenealogist has today released over 4.2 million transcripts for its RAF Operations Record Books (ORBs), fully searchable by Name, Rank, Aircraft, Squadron, and Date plus many other fields, making it simpler to find your air force ancestors. 

TheGenealogist uniquely allows you to search the period 1911-1963. With over 11 million records online, this is the largest collection of searchable AIR 27 records making it the best place to find details about your RAF ancestors. 

Handley Page Hampdens taking off in formation at RAF Waddington

TheGenealogist’s significant transcription effort has been aimed at providing detailed indexes which cover 1911 to 1963. 

Mark Bayley, Head of Content at TheGenealogist said: “We are delighted to be releasing such a large number of AIR 27 ORBs, making TheGenealogist the most comprehensive site for AIR 27 records online.” 

The ORBs on TheGenealogist include not only the journal-like day to day entries recorded on Form 540 in which you can find RAF personnel mentioned, but also all of the appendices that go along with these documents, giving many statistical details as well as “Secret Orders”.

Some feedback TheGenealogist has received:

“One of your best. To be able to follow the day to day activities of individuals down to the hours the planes take off and land is amazing. I look forward to the rest of this data set.”

“A 2 minute search brought up 2 years of operations logs for my Father, who was a pilot in 123 Squadron stationed in North Africa, India & Burma. They are full of amazing information. Everything from a near miss when a Japanese machine gun bullet ‘entered his cockpit’, what films they watched & complaints about the food. Just wonderful.”

“Just to say a big THANK YOU for giving my family access to records of my late Uncle Douglas Thom's operations in 90 Squadron Bomber Command in 1944. We have been very frustrated that his log books seem to have "disappeared" when his home in mid Wales was cleared. Now at least we have a time-line of his sorties and more information to add to his "not often spoken about" story. I will be passing what you have on him to my cousin, his son Doug, in Canada.”

Learn more about RAF records and read TheGenealogist’s free articles here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/raf/ 

This collection is provided in association with The National Archives. 

These records and many more are available to Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist.co.uk

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!