Welcome to the Family History Social

NEWS:

This new release from TheGenealogist...

We have all delved into our family history yearning to understand the lives of our ancestors, but after we have found them in the births, marriages and death records we will often turn to the census records to discover where they lived. But what happens if you've hit a brick wall in your research, struggling to piece together the puzzle of their past because they were, somehow, not at home on census night? What resource can we turn to as a substitute?

It may be that we have found our ancestor in their home and discovered that their occupation reveals that they were a shopkeeper or small business person. What we would now like to know is where they ran their business from and discover more about the village, town or area of the city in which they worked.

The latest release from TheGenealogist contains over 10 million new individuals recorded in directories from the first two decades of the 20th Century*. This virtual bookshelf stacked with volumes from the early 1900s to 1929 includes publications from all over the United Kingdom and Ireland.

These directories are filled with listings of people, their addresses and details of the places they lived in. Other directories list businesses and offer a fascinating glimpse into ancestors from this time. 

Harris & Co can be found in the Hampshire directories on TheGenealogist

You can use these records to discover the street address of your great-grandfather or their shop/business, perhaps learn where your great-grandmother practised her dressmaking trade from, or find the names of your ancestors' neighbours in the street listings. These directories will also reveal any listings of official positions that they may have held in charities, societies, local administration, etc., or even unearth your ancestor's telephone number!

With some books you can read topographical details about the village, town or city in which your ancestor lived. This will give you a better feel for what their area was like at the time that your forebears lived there.

Better than 50% off!

To celebrate this latest release, TheGenealogist is offering its 12 months Diamond Package for just £98.95 – that’s over 50% off!

To find out more and claim the offer, visit: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBDIR424

Expires on 12th May 2024.

This offer includes a lifetime discount! Your subscription will renew at the same discounted price every year you stay with us.

This includes the following:-
Subscription to Discover Your Ancestors Online Magazine (Worth £24.99)
Discover Your Ancestors' Occupations by Laura Berry (Worth £9.95)
Researching and Locating Your Ancestors by Celia Heritage (Worth £9.95)
Regional Research Guidebook by Andrew Chapman (Worth £9.95)
Discover Your Ancestors Periodical Compendium Volume 1 (Worth £9.95)

Total Savings: £105.79

Read TheGenealogist’s article, More than just an address:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2024/more-than-just-an-address-7346/ 

Over 5 million individuals have been added to TheGenealogist’s Residential and Trade Directories Collection, helping you discover your ancestors, their addresses, and their occupations back to 1744.

The new records cover England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Channel Islands, along with some from as far afield as America, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa, thus adding an international flavour to this release. 

Dating from 1744 to 1899, the directories in this addition to TheGenealogist are a useful finding aid for ancestors' names, addresses, and occupations and can offer contemporary details of where your past family lived.

If a forebear had a business, then the commercial listings in the directory could help find where an ancestor may have worked.

Early Directories can also be useful for finding the addresses of residents before the census, reveal the railways that may have served the area and to find other communications links to nearby towns. With this information, those who may have ‘lost’ an ancestor may make an educated guess of where a person may have moved to live in the past. 

These directory publications can also be a great complement to a census record, as the topographical information can flesh out an ancestor’s area for the researcher. 

In the case of a head of the household, we may be able to find an address different from that recorded in other records such as the decennial census. This may help fill in the gaps of where a stray ancestor moved to between the census counts.

Complete Access for Under £10 a Month!

To celebrate this latest release, TheGenealogist is offering its four-month Diamond package for just £39.95 – that’s less than £10 a month! 

To find out more and claim the offer, visit: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBDIR124

This offer expires at the end of 9th February 2024.

Read TheGenealogist’s article: An important resource in tracing ancestors and the man behind the popular Kelly's Directories.

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2012/an-introduction-to-directories-43/

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!

TheGenealogist has released a collection of searchable Early Trade and Residential Directories that cover the years 1816-1839 to help find ancestors in the period before the usable census records begin.

Prior to 1841 all of the U.K. censuses were generally statistical: that is, mainly headcounts, with virtually no personal information such as names recorded and so family history researchers need to turn to a substitute to find out the address where their ancestors had lived. Trade and Residential Directories list names of tradespeople, prominent citizens and in some cases other residents of a town as well.

The City from Bankside by Thomas Miles Richardson, c.1820

Many of these directories will also give a good description of the town or area which can give family historians an interesting insight into the social history of their ancestors’ locality at the time. This information usually includes the main industry, topographical details, communication links with the surrounding towns by stage coach or railway, and details of local administration offices, post offices, the clergy, charities hospitals and schools.

These directory records have been digitised by TheGenealogist and made searchable by name, so they can help researchers to find their ancestors in the Georgian and very early Victorian period.

The early Trade and Residential Directories being released in this batch include volumes that cover the areas of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Derby, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Durham, Essex, Glasgow, Hampshire, London, Liverpool, Middlesex, Northumberland, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and Suffolk.

List of Directories in this release:

Derby 1829 History, Gazetteer and Directory; Devonshire 1830 Pigot's Directory; Durham 1828 White's Directory; Essex 1832-1833 Pigot's Directory; Glasgow 1831-1832 Post Office Directory; Lincolnshire 1826/7 Directory; Liverpool 1816 Gore's Directory; London 1816 Post Office Directory; London 1819 Robson's Directory; London 1822 Post Office Directory; London and Provincial 1823-1824 New Commercial Pigot Directory; London 1824 Post Office Directory; London 1826 Post Office Directory; London 1828 Robson's Commercial Directory; London 1829 Robson's Trades Directory; London 1831 Post Office Directory; London 1833 Robson's Directory; London 1836 Post Office Directory; London 1837 Post Office Directory; London 1839 Post Office Directory; Norfolk 1830 Pigot's Directory; Northumberland 1828 White's Directory; Nottinghamshire 1832 White’s Directory; Suffolk 1830 Pigot's Directory.

Find out more about directories and how they can help you research your ancestors on TheGenealogist here:

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/directories/