News

New School Registers Released 04 October 2018

TheGenealogist has added tens of thousands of additional individuals from school registers to its Educational Records. The records can be used to discover a school pupil or university student’s achievements. Educational records will confirm birth dates and sometimes place of birth. They can give the father’s name and address, which is useful when they are missing from the census. The records can also give details of former students' occupations and further information.

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

To find out more about the records, read Nick Thorne's Article "newly launched education records and discovers a few celebrities of the day...".

New Records added to The Lloyd George Domesday Survey 19 September 2018

TheGenealogist is releasing the third part of its unique online record set, The Lloyd George Domesday Survey. This major resource, based on records created for the Valuation Office survey, can now be used to find where an ancestor lived in 1910 in the area around Brent, Kingsbury, Willlsden and Wembley. This useful combination of maps and residential data from The National Archives is being digitised by TheGenealogist to bring it online for the first time. These records precisely locate an ancestor's house on a large scale and extraordinarily detailed hand annotated map, pinpointing the exact property.

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

To find out more about the records, read Nick Thorne's Article "Brent as a rural idyll in 1900s".

New Warwickshire Parish Records 04 September 2018

TheGenealogist has added over 1.5 million individuals to their Warwickshire Parish Record Collection, which increases the coverage of this Midland county for family researchers to find their ancestors' baptisms, marriages and burials.

These records are released in association with Warwickshire County Record Office and have the benefit of high-quality images to complement the transcripts, making them a valuable resource for those with ancestors from this area.

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

To find out more about these records, read Nick Thorne's article "Exploring the Parish Registers of Warwickshire".

Central Criminal Court Records reveal thieves, forgers and serial killers 17 August 2018

TheGenealogist is adding to its Court and Criminal Records collection with the release of over 160,000 records of prisoners at the bar and their victims from the CRIM 9 records held by The National Archives. These documents were created by the Central Criminal Court and document the After Trial Calendar of Prisoners.

After Trial Calendars give family history researchers details of ancestors who were up before the Old Bailey, revealing the names of prisoners that had appeared before the court, the committing magistrates, offences the prisoner had been indicted for, the date of their trial and who they were tried before. The records give the verdict of the jury, previous convictions and the sentence or order of the court. Other information in these records are the names of the victim and the level of education or 'Degree of Instruction' as well as false names that the criminals may have used to try and hide their tracks from the authorities.

• Find ancestors accused of crimes ranging from stealing a matchbox to murder
• Discover people standing trial as forgers, baby farmers, German spies and more
• Uncover some of the aliases adopted by criminal ancestors
• See the occupation or trade of the offender
• Research records covering the period 1855-1915

Read our article on the bicycle thief who became the infamous 'Brides in the bath murderer'.

New Records added to The Lloyd George Domesday Survey 03 August 2018

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 indicate the exact property.

• Links individual properties to extremely detailed ordnance survey maps used in 1910
• Shows the original Field book often giving a detailed description of the property
• Pinpoint an address found in a census or street directory down to a specific house on the map
• Fully searchable by name, parish and street
• Zoom into the maps to show individual properties as they existed in 1910

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 the extra 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.

To find out more about the records, read Nick Thorne's Article "Finding the Baronet of Barnet".

New Poll Books Added 10 July 2018

TheGenealogist has just released 116,218 records into its ever growing Poll Book Database. This useful resource for family historians can be used to find ancestors' residences from the period before the census collection. The newly released Poll Books range from 1705 to the 1830s, joining records covering periods between census years.

The database allows researchers to:

• Discover ancestors who had the vote
• Find where they were registered to cast their ballot
• Discover the nature of their qualification to vote, such as possessing a Corn Warehouse, a Workshop, a House, or owning a Brewhouse
• These Poll Books range from 1705 to the 1830s.

The records cover 18 different registers of people who were entitled to vote in between 1705 and the 1830s and cover constituencies situated in Abingdon, Bristol, Hampshire, Somerset, Suffolk, Maidstone, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and York.

These records have been transcribed by volunteers on the UKindexer.co.uk website, which brings benefits to the volunteers as well as the wider family history community. They join the millions of electoral resources on TheGenealogist, which include Electoral registers, Voters lists and Absentee Voters.

These new records are available as part of the Diamond Subscription at TheGenealogist.

Discover how John Constable's family voted in Nick Thorne's article about the release.

New Change of Names Database 22 June 2018

This searchable database is great for family historians wanting to find ancestors who officially changed their forename or surname in Britain. The Change of Names Database covers information gathered from a number of sources including Private Acts of Parliament; Royal Licences published in the London and Dublin Gazettes; notices of changes of name published in The Times after 1861 with a few notices from other newspapers; registers of the Lord Lyon [King of Arms] where Scottish changes of name were commonly recorded; records in the office of the Ulster King at Arms and also some private information.

These fully searchable records allow researchers to:

• Break 'Brick Walls' in your research
• Discover ancestors that recorded a change of name
• Find what name had been adopted and the name discarded

Read Nick Thorne's article exploring this record set.

[Image shows Lord Byron who is featured in these records]