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Pinpoint your English and Welsh Ancestors on the map

TheGenealogist has announced the completion of its project to link all the National Tithe Record Collection for England & Wales with its powerful Map Explorer™.

Family historians are now able to view their ancestors’ land and homes plotted on historic Tithe maps that have been georeferenced, allowing you to see the location on today's Modern Street and Satellite maps to see how the area has developed over time. 

Tithe record books and maps cover the majority of England and Wales and were created by the 1836 Tithe Commutation Act. This required tithes in kind to be converted to monetary payments, known as tithe rentcharges. 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. These maps and apportionment books were the product of that survey and have been digitised by TheGenealogist.

Tithes usefully record all levels of society, from wealthy landowners to tenant farmers and cover the majority of England and Wales. They are a valuable resource for family and house historians as they can provide insights into land and property ownership, occupancy and usage, dating back before the first searchable census. 

TheGenealogist has painstakingly georeferenced their tithe maps, which means you can view them layered on top of modern day maps and satellite images, using their intuitive Map Explorer™. This allows you to pinpoint a record to the exact same location on various historical and modern maps, even when the landscape has completely changed over the years.

“This final release of the Welsh tithes marks the completion of our project.These records, in combination with Map Explorer, make it easier than ever to learn about our ancestors’ lives and the places they lived and worked.” Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content at TheGenealogist.

This week’s release adds to the many types of records that can be viewed in Map Explorer™. This includes the Lloyd George Domesday land tax records, the UK census 1871-1911, the 1939 Register, the Headstone Collection, War Memorials and the Image Archive.

To learn more about TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™, please visit https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/maps/

Feature Article Case Study

Read our feature article where we use the records on Map Explorer™ to take a look at Thomas Rees, an agricultural labourer, leader of the first Rebecca Riots and, under a unique Welsh tradition, a freeholder of a cottage that he built in one night!
https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/found-in-the-welsh-tithe-records-the-cottage-built-in-one-night-6801/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, which puts 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 and 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!

TheGenealogist’s Map ExplorerTM, the powerful mapping tool for family historians, has been boosted this week by the addition of four new counties of georeferenced Tithe Maps into the record set layer. 

Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can now view the Victorian Tithe Maps linked to apportionment records for Cornwall, Derbyshire, Northamptonshire and Worcestershire which are overlaid on the modern and historical maps of the base and middle layers of Map Explorer™. This enables the user to see the land as it appeared through time. Tithe records allow researchers to find land that was owned or occupied by ancestors in the period 1837 to 1850s with some additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. This meant that it is not just the wealthy landowners who are recorded in the tithe records but also those tenants who may have farmed a small plot or lived in a cottage.

First & Last House, Land’s End from TheGenealogist’s Image Archive

Map Explorer™ includes various years of georeferenced Ordnance Survey maps, current road and satellite view maps and with the additional Tithe record layer researchers can see how their ancestors’ environment had changed over the decades. When used in conjunction with other records, such as the census, the family history researcher can gain a fascinating insight into their forebears’ story.

• This release adds 784 maps across 4 counties
• Total new Tithe plot pins on Map Explorer: 547,976
• Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ including this release now: 10,494
• 4,504,575 viewable records are now indicated by Map Pins on Map Explorer™

In TheGenealogist’s article about this release, we can look at how some furze-covered tracts of countryside at Land’s End were transformed by a family into a tourist spot. Finding the plots of neighbours on the tithe maps and by also using TheGenealogist’s census collection and its standout feature allowing a researcher to view all the households on a street, we are able to investigate how the different names in the records were related to each other with various “cousins'' living next door or owning adjacent plots of land.

Read the feature article ‘Keeping it in the Family – The Tale of Land’s End’

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/keeping-it-in-the-family----the-tale-of-lands-end-1438/

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 Map Explorer on a mobile phone, using the “Locate Me” feature whilst visiting Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. Cycling through a Modern Satellite Image, Modern Map, 1890’s OS Map and 1838 Tithe Map

Over 30 counties of georeferenced Tithe Maps have been added to date!

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™, the resource for researchers to turn to when searching for an ancestor’s landholding whether owned or simply occupied, has been boosted with the significant addition of georeferenced Tithe Maps for Anglesey, Durham, Devon, Shropshire, Somerset, Suffolk and Wiltshire. 

From cottages with gardens to acres of farmed land and country estates, the addition of georeferenced Tithe maps as a layer over modern and other historical maps will allow researchers to see how the landscape changed over time. Map Explorer™ gives the researcher the ability to switch between layers of tithe, historical and modern maps which are all tied to coordinates and so allow the user the ability to see how places change over the years. 

From a plot identified on the tithe map it is possible to click through to then see the description as it was recorded in the apportionment record at the time, thus revealing more about what an ancestor’s holding had been. Using Map Explorer™ the family historian can browse an ancestor’s area to find other plots that they owned or occupied. Alternatively, TheGenealogist’s Master Search can be used to look for ancestors’ plots across the tithe records and then view them on Map Explorer™.

Lacock Abbey on a tithe map

Subscribers accessing TheGenealogist on their mobile devices, while out walking, can use the “locate me” function when using the tool on the move and so open up the history of what is around them. This is explored further in their featured article (see the link below).

• Total number of maps in this release is 2,738
• Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ is now 9,710
• Map Explorer™ has over four million viewable records indicated by Map Pins
• TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ displays maps for historical periods up to the modern day.

The addition to Map Explorer™ this week of the black and white tithe maps for Anglesey, Durham, Devon, Shropshire, Somerset, Suffolk and Wiltshire, linked to the apportionment books, will enable researchers to discover ancestors who both owned or occupied property between 1837 and the 1850s, with some additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. The records allow TheGenealogist’s Diamond subscribers to find details of the plots, the owners of the land, as well as the occupiers at the time of the survey while also identifying the actual plots on the maps. Tithes usefully record all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of small plots such as a homestead or a cottage. 

With this addition, Map Explorer™ now features colour tithe maps for the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, Surrey, Westmorland, the City of York as well as North and East Ridings of Yorkshire plus black and white maps for Anglesey, Berkshire, Cambridge, Cheshire, Durham, Devon, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire Suffolk, Yorkshire West Riding and Wiltshire. 

See TheGenealogist’s article: Traveling back in time with MapExplorer™ in your hand: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/traveling-back-in-time-with-mapexplorer-in-your-hand-1386/

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!

See Ancestors’ land or property recorded on georeferenced Tithe Maps

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ which can help researchers find an ancestor’s land and view how the landscape changed over time has been augmented by the addition of georeferenced Tithe Maps for Cheshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Staffordshire and Yorkshire West Riding.

• Total number of maps in this release is 3,655
• Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ is now 6,972 
• Map Explorer™ has over four million viewable records indicated by Map Pins
• TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ displays maps for historical periods up to the modern day.

Corfe Castle mapped over the years

Map Explorer™ now features various colour and black and white Tithe maps as well as modern map base layers and historical maps which are all georeferenced to allow the user the ability to see how places change over the years. Map Explorer™ is a useful tool for browsing an ancestor’s area to find other plots that they owned or occupied, while TheGenealogist’s Master Search can be used to look for ancestors’ plots across the tithe records and then view them on Map Explorer™.

The addition to Map Explorer™ this week of the black and white tithe maps for Cheshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Staffordshire and Yorkshire West Riding linked to the apportionment books will enable researchers to discover ancestors who both owned or occupied property between 1837 and the 1850s, with some additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. The records allow TheGenealogist’s Diamond subscribers to find details of the plots, the owners of the land, as well as the occupiers at the time of the survey while also identifying the actual plots on the maps. Tithes usefully record all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of small plots such as a homestead or a cottage. 

Map Explorer™ now features colour tithe maps for the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, Surrey, Westmorland, the City of York as well as North and East Ridings of Yorkshire plus black and white maps for Berkshire, Cambridge, Cheshire, Dorset, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire West Riding.

See our article: Tithe Maps on Map Explorer reveal more about the place ancestors lived and worked: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2020/tithe-records-on-the-map-explorer-reveal-more-about-the-places-our-ancestors-lived-and-worked-1302/

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!

Powerful new map tool now helps trace ancestors land or property with further additions of Tithe Maps

TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ which can help researchers find an ancestor’s property and watch the landscape change over time has now been enhanced by the addition of georeferenced black and white Tithe Maps for Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire.

• Total number of maps in this release is 927
• Total number of Tithe maps in Map Explorer™ is 3,317
• Map Explorer™ has over two million selectable records shown using Map Pins

Joining the georeferenced Lloyd George Data Layer, Headstones, War Memorials, and colour Tithe Maps for a number of counties, the new additions to the ever-expanding Map Explorer™ allow researchers to trace property from Victorian times to the modern era.

Great Coxwell Tithe Barn Oxfordshire (was Berkshire) used to store original tithe contributions of crops. 

Photo by Motacilla / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

• TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ displays maps for historical periods up to the modern day.
• Various colour and black and white Tithe maps have now been added to this innovative tool and linked to the apportionment books, enabling researchers to locate where their ancestors lived or worked.

The addition to the Map Explorer™ of the black and white tithe maps for Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire linked to the apportionment books will enable researchers to find the details of the plots, their owners and their occupiers at the time that the survey was taken in Victorian times while also identifying the plots on the maps. By using the Map Explorer™ controls the researcher can then see how the landscape changes over time with the aid of the georeferenced historical and modern map layers. Tithe maps and records were drawn up from 1836 to the 1850s, with additional altered apportionments in later years when property was sold or divided. Tithes usefully record all levels of society from large estate owners to occupiers of small plots such as a homestead or a cottage. 

The Map Explorer™ now features colour tithe maps for the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Essex, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, Surrey, Westmorland, the City of York as well as North and East Ridings of Yorkshire plus black and white maps for Berkshire, Cambridge, Leicestershire and Oxfordshire.

See our article: Tithe Maps on Map Explorer

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2020/tithe-records-on-map-explorer-1255/

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!

TheGenealogist has released the Colour Tithe Maps for Essex with full integration with its MapExplorer™. This release allows us to see the area in West Ham, Essex on which the ExCel centre now stands and to discover the changes from Victorian pasture land, to dock complex then Exhibition venue and now to the Nightingale Hospital as the Covid-19 emergency builds.

This versatile tool can give the family history researcher a fantastic insight into what our ancestors’ city, town or village looked like over a number of periods and can also help them to find an ancestor’s property. With the addition of georeferenced Colour Tithe Maps. TheGenealogist has also today released colour tithe maps for Essex – you can search these as normal or browse them on Map Explorer™. 

Joining the georeferenced Lloyd George Data Layer, Headstones and War Memorials, the Colour Tithe Maps are an important enhancement of the ever-expanding Map Explorer™.

• The Map Explorer™ displays maps for historical periods up to the modern day.
• Colour Tithe maps bring the early Victorian era to this innovative tool
• Plots on the maps are linked to the apportionment books, enabling researchers to locate where their ancestors lived or worked

TheGenealogist has linked these highly detailed Tithe maps to the apportionment book records so providing researchers with the details of the plots, their owners and their occupiers at the time of the early Victorian survey. The coverage ranges from large estate owners to ordinary people occupying small plots such as a homestead or a cottage. Colour Tithe Maps make it easier for the researcher to understand the terrain as the streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, houses and trees are often highlighted in different colours. 

TheGenealogist’s Colour Tithe Maps now cover the counties of Buckinghamshire, Cumberland, Huntingdonshire, Middlesex, Northumberland, Rutland, Surrey, Westmorland, the City, North and East Ridings of Yorkshire along with the new addition this week of Essex. 

Subscribers to TheGenealogist’s Diamond membership can now view the latest colour or grayscale maps when using the Tithe & Landowner records.

TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™ has been developed to view these georeferenced historic maps overlaid on top of modern background maps including those from Ordnance Survey and Bing Street maps, as well as a satellite view. With the Map Explorer™, you can search for an ancestor's property, discovering its site, even if the road has changed or is no longer there. 

Alternatively, using the Master Search on TheGenealogist, having found your forebear listed in the Tithe Records you can click through to the Map Explorer™ which will also show War Memorials or cemeteries on the various maps.

Read TheGenealogist’s article here: 

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2020/essex-tithe-maps-reveal-ever-changing-landscape-1239/

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!