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SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Introduction

General Register

Census

IGI

National Burial Index

Parish Registers

Wills

Other Sources

• Before 1853 the vast majority of burials in England and Wales were recorded in Parish Registers
• For Nonconformist, Roman Catholic and Jewish burials check out Non Parochial Registers
• Entries for burials in London between 1538 and 1853 can be viewed online at the Origins Network subscription web site - entries contain the name, age, date of death and burual ground
• Although its coverage varies considerably from county to county and period to period, it is worth first searching the National Burial Index. This index is at its most useful for the period 1800-1840.

• An Act of Parliament in 1853 enabled local authorities to purchase and use land for burials
• Since then with the growing spread of civic and private cemeteries it becomes increasingly complex finding burial records, particularly in urban areas
• Burial records for civic cemeteries are usually held and maintained by local authorities
• Although your ancestor's Death Certificate will not tell you where he or she was buried, it will tell you where they were living at the time of death and so help narrow down your search for a burial record

• Records on county court proceedings can be found in the relevant County Record Office
• Accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at the Old Bailey between 1674 and 1834 can be searched and viewed online at the excellent Old Bailey Proceedings site funded by the universities of Sheffield and Hertfordshire along with the Arts and Humanities Research Council
• Records on central court proceedings such as those of the Old Bailey can be found at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there

Prison Records

• Until the 19th century, except for prisons attached to the central courts, all prisons were administered locally
• Pre 19th century records on these locally administered prisons can be found at the relevant County Record Office
• For all other prison records (including those for prisoners held in debtors goals) it is worth first checking out the extensive collection held at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there

• Convicts were transported to Australia between 1787 and 1867.
• A large collection of records relating to these transported convicts is held at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there.

• Local trade and commercial directories have been published since the late 17th century
• They list all the traders and professionals in their locality
• By the late 19th century these directories were becoming very comprehensive and many contained alphabetical lists of private householders as well information on local traders
• Most Record Offices contain at least a few 19th century editions of trade directories for their area
• The University of Leicester has set up a web site with online access to large collection of digitally imaged 18th, 19th and early 20th century trade directories
• The Genealogist subscription site also has a large collection of trade directories for viewing online

• Specialist directories for different professions have been published since the 19th century
• These include ones for pharmaceutical chemists, dentists, company directors, insurance brokers, marine engineers, musicians, architects, veterinary surgeons , solicitors, schoolmasters and numerous other occupations
• Past editions of these professional directories can usually be viewed at the current headquarters of the professional body involved or if not, the professional body should be able to advise you on where you can access past editions

• The British Telecom Archives in the City of London hold almost the complete set of telephone directories for England and Wales since 1880 - these can now be searched and viewed online on a subscription basis at ancestry.co.uk - this online collection contains over 1700 phone books published between 1880 and 1984 and provides near full county coverage for England and Wales - telephone books are very useful for pinpointing individuals in a particular place and time - while censuses are only conducted once every ten years, annualy published phone books provide a year by year record of individuals' geographic locations - this makes it possible to locate many individuals in between census years and especially to find family members post 1901 (the latest viewable UK census)

Education Records

• Many elementary schools within the state system have registers and school log books going back to the 1850s when a great number of schools were built. Increasingly their log books and other records are being can be found in Record Offices. Although there are still many that are retained by the schools themselves, the current head teachers are often only too pleased when someone takes an interest in them.

• Over the years, grammar and public schools have tended to generate many records of interest to the genealogist. Although some of these records can be found in Record Offices, many are retained in the schools themselves
• The Society of Genealogists holds an extensive collection of registers of pupils at public schools

• Although before the 1820s, the only universities in England and Wales were Oxford and Cambridge, in the early 17th century a higher percentage of children were attending university than at any later time before the 1950s. There is therefore a good chance that at least one of your ancestors can be found in the Oxbridge records.

• Only male owners of freehold property were entitled to vote (under 1 in 10 of the adult male population)
• Records were kept in county Poll Books of everybody who voted in a contested election
• Voters are listed in surname/forename order together with their occupation and the township in which their qualifying freehold property lay
• Most poll books are post 1711

• Electoral Registers have been compiled annually since 1832
• Successive changes to voting qualifications have progressively increased the voting franchise as follows:
• 1 in 7 men by 1832
• 1 in 3 men by 1867
• 2 in 3 men by 1884
• All men over 21 and all women over 30 by 1918
• All adults over 21 by 1928
• All adults over 18 by 1969
• Record Offices and Local Studies Centres usually have a substantial number of electoral registers for their own area dating from the earliest years
• The British Library holds a complete set of electoral registers for England and Wales from 1947 and a good collection of earlier ones
• The National Library of Wales holds many of the electoral registers for Wales

• For 500 years after the Norman Conquest, the manor, an agricultural estate, was the unit of local government in England and Wales
• At its head was the lord of the manor who held the estate either directly from the king or through another lord
• The organ of manorial administration was the manor court which was a periodic meeting of the tenants in the manor presided over by the lord of the manor or his steward
• Before the start of Parish Registers in 1538, manorial records are virtually the only detailed genealogical source for the bulk of the population in England and Wales.

• These are the most useful of manorial records for the genealogist
• They detail the proceedings of the manor court
• They record changes of occupancy of tenanted land providing names of the late and new owners
• Disputes between tenants settled in the court often reveal the names of family members

• Survival of manorial records has not been very good - only a small proportion of court rolls from before 1500 have survived
• The majority of manorial records are held in Record Offices and private repositories
• The National Archives maintain the Manorial Documents Register which identifies the location of archived manorial records
• Part of this register has been computerised for searching online (Wales, Isle of Wight, Hampshire, MIddlesex, Norfolk, Yorkshire)
• The rest of the register can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew

• The complete Boyd's Marriage Index can be searched online at the Origins Network subscription web site - this index contains over 7 million names from parish marriage registers, Bishop's Transcripts and marriage licences for the period 1538 to 1840 - all English counties are covered, although none completely - the index is particularly important to anyone researching East Anglian ancestry for not only is the coverage almost complete (over 95% of all the ancient parishes are included), but little of this data is available anywhere else

• W.P. Phillimore was a genealogist who started the job of publishing marriage transcripts from early parish records - in total around 1500 parishes were covered in more than 200 volumes - these transcripts can be searched and viewed online at the Genealogist subscription web site

• This index includes over 1.5 million marriage entries from 1780 to 1837 for over 2,500 parishes - it is particularly useful for London marriages since it covers all but a couple of the 103 ancient parishes of the old City of London - the index can be searched at the Institute of Heraldic Genealogical Studies Achievements web site - searching the index is free - genealogical abstracts of content cost £5

• First look up www.coraweb.com.au which is an excellent "gateway" site listing all the key genealogical sites in Australia helpfully seperated into categories (birth/marriage/death records, census records, convict records, wills and probate records, etc.)
• The New South Wales State Records website is well worth visiting. It has several databases and fact sheets related to immigration into Australia
• The Australian National Archives site is particularly useful for tracing world war 1 veterans bearing in mind that many were born in the U.K. It is also very useful if a family member migrated to Australia after 1920 and even more so for migrations after the second world war
• The Australian War Memorial site is excellent for tracing world war 2 veterans.
• It is also well worth contacting the appropriate family history society(ies) within Australia - a list of links to the main ones is held on this site

• Lists of transatlantic passengers to Canada in the period 1865 to 1908 have been microfilmed by the National Archives of Canada - see their Canadian Genealogy Centre web site for a catalogue of these microfilms which can be viewed at any LDS Family History Centre
• Lists of over 100,000 passengers who sailed from the British Isles to North America in 1890 can be viewed online at the Origins Network subscription web site - entries contain the name, occupation, nationality, age and marital status of each passenger together with the ship's name, date of sailing, name of ship's master and departure and destination ports
• For the period 1925 to 1935, the National Archives of Canada maintain an online database of immigration records which can be searched by surname/forename.

• See the Archives New Zealand web site for a guide on where to locate lists of migrants to New Zealand
• Passenger lists of migrants to New Zealand can be viewed by name or port of arrival at an excellent site that contains a wealth of other information on migrants (pioneer rolls, shipping arrivals, etc)
• New Zealand Bound is another site containing a large number of passenger lists - it also provides helpful guidance on locating New Zealand immigrant and vessel arrival information together with a comprehensive set of links to other passenger list sites
• The Welsh Interest Group of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists maintains a site listing Welsh migrants to New Zealand

• Rootsweb provides access to a very active mailing list on British migrants to South Africa prior to 1900 - the postings to this mailing list can be keyword searched
• Lists of passengers on various ships arriving in Cape Town between 1849 and 1951 can be viewed at the South African Genealogy site
• Lists of passengers arriving on ships travelling from England to Durban between 1845 and 1858 can ve viewed at the South African Passenger Lists site - this site also contains lists of passengers arriving at Cape Town between Sepetmeber and December in 1852
• 1820Settlers.com contains a wealth of information about the 3,800 plus British settlers (and their descendants) who migrated to South Africa in 1820

• From 1892 to 1924 more than 22 million migrants to the United States passed through Ellis Island - thanks to the efforts of the Latter-day Saints, the associated transatlantic passenger lists have been transcribed into a vast database which can be searched online to find an individual migrant
• Lists of over 100,000 passengers who sailed from the British Isles to North America in 1890 can be viewed online at the Origins Network subscription web site - entries contain the name, occupation, nationality, age and marital status of each passenger together with the ship's name, date of sailing, name of ship's master and departure and destination ports
• The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provides a helpful set of guides to archives held on migrants to the United States

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission provides an online database giving details of the 1.7 million members of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First or Second World Wars
• This online database can be searched by surname and initials

• The National Archives provides an online index to over 5 million World War 1 medals - images of the source medal index cards can be downloaded for a fee
• The National Archives also provide an online index to over 100,000 merchant seamen World War 2 medals - images of the source medal index cards can be downloaded for a fee

• Army officers can be researched fairly easily by consulting the relevant Army List - this document provides a broad outline of every army officer's career - the National Archives hold Army Lists from 1702 running right up to the present day
• Army Lists for 1806, 1842, 1863, 1881, 1904, 1915 and 1920 can be viewed online at the Genealogist subscription web site
• Information on an "other ranks" ancestor can be obtained from his Discharge Papers - the National Archives hold Discharge Papers from 1760 to 1913 - after 1883 these are arranged alphabetically throughout the whole army but before then they were arranged by regiment
• Another source of information for "other ranks" ancestors are Muster Rolls - these are arranged by regiment and you can view them for the period 1730 to 1898 at the National Archives
• Service records of non-commissioned officers and other ranks who were discharged from the Army between 1914 and 1920 and claimed disability pensions for service in World War 1 can be searched and viewed online at the ancestry.co.uk subscription site
• Knowing which regiment an "other ranks" ancestor served in considerably eases research - if you have also found your ancestor in a census return, the census entry should list his regiment.

• Information on a naval officer ancestor can be obtained from the relevant Navy List, Officers Service Record and Passing Certificate - these documents can be viewed at the National Archives - Navy Lists from 1756 to 1950 can also be viewed at the Society of Genealogists
• Information on a naval rating ancestor can be obtained from the relevant Ship Muster assuming you know which ship your ancestor served in - Ship Musters for the period 1667-1878 can be viewed at the National Archives

• Obituary notices that contain a potted biography of your ancestor
• Scrupulously reported funerals and weddings that provide useful inventories of those attending (with relationships to the deceased or to the bride and groom)
• Local court proceedings which can shed new light on the character of your ancestors
• Advertisements which provide an insight into the business carried out by tradesmen ancestors
• General background on the local and national events shaping the lives of your ancestors

• The largest collection of back copies of national and local newspapers is held at the British Library's Newspaper Library - use its online catalogue to check whether it holds the back copies of a local or national newspaper that you are interested in
• Most Record Offices and Local Studies Centres have back copy archives of their local newspapers

• After civil registration was started in 1837, two parliamentary commissions were set up to collect registers from Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and other non Anglican denominations.
• Many of these collected Nonconformist records are held at the National Archives at Kew - see their catalogue for details
• Microfilm copies of the collected Nonconformist records for Wales can be viewed at the National Library of Wales
• Many Nonconformist births or baptisms are indexed in the International Genealogical Index
• There are several societies with a special interest in tracing Nonconformist ancestors

• Many Roman Catholic mission registers are held at the Central Catholic Library. Their web site contains a county-by-county list of mission registers held there.
• There are several societies with a special interest in tracing Roman Catholic ancestors

• Most Jewish records are still held by synagogues or Jewish burial societies.
• The London Metropolitan Archive holds some records from the Federation Synagogues
• A helpful starting point in tracing Jewish ancestors is to contact the Jewish Genealogy Society of Great Britain

• From 1710 to 1811 the Commissioners of Stamps kept registers of the duties they received on indentures - these now form the Apprenticeship Books held at the National Archives at Kew
• These Apprenticeship Books record the names, addresses and trades of the masters together with the names of their apprentices and dates of their indentures - for more details see the National Archives online guide
• An index to over 380,000 names contained within over 130,000 abstracts relating to apprenticeships with London Livery Companies between 1442 and 1850 can be searched online at the Origins Network subscription web site - the abstracts which can be viewed online show the name of the apprentice; his father's name, place of residence, father's occupation; the name of the master and the date of the indenture
• Abstracts of over 350,000 tax records relating to appenticeships between 1710 and 1774 can be viewed online at the Origins Network subscription web site - the abstracts (of which 20% are Scottish) contain the name of the apprentice, the father's name, the place the apprentice came from, his father’s trade, the name of the master to whom he was indentured, the master’s trade, the place where the master lived and the value of the taxable premium paid to the master for taking on the apprentice - the site contains a searchable name index to these abstracts

• The Society of Brushmakers Descendants maintains various lists of brushmaker ancestors

• Various documents relating to customs and excise officers dating back to 1671 can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there.

• Various documents relating to dockyard workers dating back to 1660 can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there.

• Various documents relating to attorneys and solicitors dating back to 1656 can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide for the records held there.

• The Guildhall Library holds an extensive archive of records relating to apothecaries, surgeons, physicians and other medical practitioners - consult its online guide for the records held at the library and elsewhere

• From 1747 masters of merchant ships were required to keep and file a Muster Roll giving details of the number of crewmen and the ship's voyages
• From 1835 onwards these Muster Rolls were superceded by Crew Lists
• The National Archives at Kew hold a whole series of these Muster Rolls and Crew Lists - see its online guides to merchant seamen records relating to the period 1747 to 1860 and that relating to 1861 onwards

• Check out the Police Index which is an online database of over 70,000 policemen extracted from police magazines and local newspapers for the period 1860 to 1920

• Check out the genealogy page of the Great Eastern Railway Society which provides a helpful guide on tracing railway staff ancestors

• Registration details of nearly 100,000 teachers who taught in England and Wales between 1870 and 1948 can be viewed online at the Origins Network subscription web site - the records contain the teacher’s name (and for married women teachers often their maiden name as well), the date of registration, their address, their qualifications, where trained and their experience (which schools they taught at, when and in what capacity) - these records are indexed by name

• A database of some of those involved in the sugar refining industry since the 16th century can be searched online

• Lay Subsidies, a general tax on the personal wealth of individuals (excluding land), was levied between 1290 and 1332
• Most local record society publications on lay subsidies can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew - consult its online guide to taxation records before 1660 for more information on lay subsidies

• The Hearth Tax was levied on each hearth in every home during the period 1662 to 1689.
• These tax records list virtually all heads of households together with the number of heated rooms in their homes (the more hearths the greater the wealth and status of the householder)
• The only Hearth Tax records surviving are those between 1662 and 1674, most of which are held at the National Archives at Kew

• Land Tax was introduced in 1692 and lasted until 1963
• This tax was administered at local level and based on a tax quota for each parish which did not vary
• Land tax assessments annually list property owners and their tenants
• Most of the surviving land tax assessment records in Record Offices relate to the period 1780 to 1832
• Land tax assessment records for the whole of England and Wales (apart from Flintshire) for the year 1798 can be viewed at the National Archives at Kew

• Death duty registers hold details of wills and bequests for estates liable to death duties.
• They contain the deceased's name, address and date of death, the approximate value of the estate, and summary information on the deceased's will
• Microfilmed indexes and registers for the period 1796 to 1857 can be viewed at the National Archives or at your local LDS Family History Centre
• Indexes for the period 1858 to 1903 can be viewed at the National Archives
• Registers however for 1858 to 1903 can only be viewed at the National Archives at Kew and need to be booked at least three days in advance
• After 1903 records were kept in individual files instead of large registers and have not been preserved