News

Mapping the UK 1871 Census 10 March 2023

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 to either house, street or parish level. 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.

You can find out more about this release in this week's featured article, Putting 1871 on the map.

More than 355 Square Miles of additional Lloyd George Domesday Records Released 24 February 2023

We have just released 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.

These records are an essential resource for family historians and researchers looking to uncover information about their ancestors' properties and landholdings. The newly released records include detailed maps, field books, and accompanying notebooks that provide an invaluable insight into the lives and homes of our ancestors.

Whether you're a seasoned genealogist or just starting your family history journey, these records are an exciting addition to our already extensive collection of historical documents. So, delve into these fascinating records and discover the stories of your ancestors and their properties today!

New 1939 Register Records Revealed 10 February 2023

We have just added over 342,500 new records to the 1939 Register for England and Wales, opening previously closed records. Researchers can now see all people born in 1922 opened under the 100 year rule along with those who have passed away since the last release.

Our version of the 1939 Register is matched to our powerful mapping tool Map Explorer™, so that researchers can see more accurately where their ancestor's house was situated on maps down to house, street or parish level, giving more detail than ever before. With its SmartSearch family historians can discover even more from the records in the 1939 Register not just where their ancestors were living as the Second World War began in Britain, but potential birth and death records. You can discover more about this in this week's article.

New 1831 Irish Tithe Defaulters and Irish Parish Registers 13 January 2023

Today we have released 371,400 Kildare Catholic Parish Registers covering baptisms, marriages and burials, which will be a welcome resource for those family historians wanting to research their Irish ancestry from this eastern part of Ireland.

Also released at this time are more than 29,000 individuals recorded as Irish Tithe Defaulters. These records from 1831 can be a useful stand-in for the 1831 Irish census which was almost completely destroyed in 1922.

Tithes were levied on all occupiers of agricultural land, no matter what their religion was and the Roman Catholic population of Ireland particularly resented paying these tithes to the Church of Ireland (the Established Church) on top of often supporting their own priests. Refusal to pay the tithes came to a head in the years 1831 to 1832, beginning what is known as the 'Tithe War' in Ireland. You can discover more about this in this week's article.

Over 800 Square Miles of Land Tax records released 22 December 2022

More than 185,000 new Lloyd George Domesday land tax records have been added to our 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 lived in or had been the landlord of.

We have 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 our 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.

Chelsea Pensioner Records 09 December 2022

We have been extending our ever-growing Military records collection with a fascinating new record set for all our Diamond subscribers. More than 629,000 historic records for Chelsea Pensioners from 1702-1933 are now available, with high quality scans of the original document pages.

The records in this release include registers, admission books, ledgers and so on that relate to army pensioners and the payment of pensions to these individuals. The majority of the records relate to pensions payable by the Commissioners of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, to either in-pensioners or out-pensioners.

The bulk of the registers and admission books will give a researcher the name, rank and regiment, rate of pension, date of admission to pension, and residence of the army pensioner. Additionally, many of the records will provide a date and place of birth, a record of service and complaint or reason for discharge.

1881 Census on Map Explorer 25 November 2022

We have now linked all of our 1881 census records of England, Scotland and Wales to our powerful Map Explorer™ so that users can see the locations of houses plotted on georeferenced historic and modern map layers.

Unique to our website, viewing a household record from the 1881 census will now show a map pinpointing the house, street or parish. 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 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 once lived.