News

New Court Records Reveal a Bewitching Array of Crimes 27 October 2023

We have added a fascinating new collection of Quarter Session Registers to our Court & Criminal Records, this new release covers a period from 1590 – 1839 and includes the names of indicted persons, witnesses, and the Justices of the Peace.

Search these records to find your miscreant ancestors brought before the local court quarter sessions, with indictments such as assaults, riots, running unlicensed alehouses, bastardy, and not going to church on a Sunday. They even include those accused of practising witchcraft!

The Quarter Session Records were produced by the local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year. These courts, presided over by two or more justices of the peace plus a chairman, would sit with a jury at Epiphany (in January), Easter (March/April), Midsummer (June/July) and then at Michaelmas (September/October).

National Tithe Record Collection for England & Wales now complete on Map Explorer™ 13 October 2023

We are excited to announce the completion of our major project to link all the National Tithe Record Collection for England & Wales with our powerful Map Explorer.

This exciting addition to Map Explorer will open new doors for researchers, genealogists, and anyone interested in the historical and geographical landscape of England and Wales. This powerful tool lets you connect with the past and learn more about the land and communities that shaped our present.

Find out more about our Tithe Records and Map Explorer in our short video.

“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

Family historians can use this exciting resource to view their ancestors’ land and homes plotted on the historic Tithe maps. These maps have been georeferenced, allowing you to view the location on today's Modern Street and Satellite maps to see how the area has developed over time.

Searchable by the owner or occupier’s name, place or keyword via Master Search or you can view the maps directly in Map Explorer™. Zooming in on a place will show pins for each plot of land, showing you the owner and occupier of each property. You can view the original Tithe map or other related historic maps and a satellite image view.

This week's article looks at Thomas Rees, an agricultural labourer and leader of the first Rebecca Riots, who became a freeholder of a cottage by building it in one night!

Bedfordshire & Hertfordshire Records and Maps Now Complete 29 September 2023

We have now completed the 1910s land tax records for Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. These Lloyd George Domesday Survey records are a fully searchable resource that family and house historians will find invaluable in their research. Using the field books and maps enables you to discover more about the type of property that your ancestors had once occupied and to see the actual location on a range of contemporary and modern maps.

Using the power of our Map Explorer™ family and house historians can now see the same georeferenced plot on a modern map and investigate how the area may have changed over the last hundred years or more, as well as click through to read the surveyor's field book entries.

With the addition of these records, there are now over 2 Million land tax records searchable online exclusive to TheGenealogist, covering all the boroughs of Greater London plus Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire and Middlesex.

Over Half a Million Irish Parish Records Released 15 September 2023

Another whole county's worth of Irish parish records now bolsters our record collections, with over 510,000 individuals from County Laois added to our easily searchable records.

County Laois, once known as Queen's County from 1556 to 1922, is a double landlocked county in the Eastern and Midland Region of the Republic of Ireland. As the Irish diaspora has spread out across the globe, especially during the terrible events of the Great Famine of 1845–49 which devastated the county at the time, many people from across the world will be able to trace their roots back to this part of Ireland.

Searching our records provides handy links to the National Library of Ireland (NLI), in order to see digitised images of the actual registers. Our transcriptions benefit greatly from our powerful SmartSearch which can be used to identify possible siblings, as well as parent's potential marriage details.

New Legal Ancestors' Records 25 August 2023

Finding that an ancestor belongs to a profession or occupation can be a great way in to researching a family tree. Many of them will be recorded in specially produced lists or directories, such as those lawyer lists that have been released online today.

For researchers with forebears that belonged to the legal profession, this is a great set of new historical data which has just joined our ever expanding Occupational Record set. These book records can give family historians fascinating facts about an ancestor, often revealing to researchers useful details of their lives beyond simply their professional particulars.

With the release of thousands of records online, Diamond subscribers can now look for members of legal professionals in a number of listings with a legal flavour from 1780 to 1911.

Over 1,000 square miles of land tax records released 11 August 2023

Today sees the launch of a superb new resource for family historians, providing a great way to discover what type of property our ancestors once occupied. We have just added records covering every head of household and property owner in Oxfordshire around the period 1910-1915, with ver 1,000 square miles of searchable property records.

Following many years of collaboration between The National Archives' conservation and records team and TheGenealogist’s digitization staff at Kew, the project to publish these records, comprising of the IR 58 Field Books and accompanying IR 121 to IR 135 Ordnance Survey maps, has now reached a major landmark.

Dr Jessamy Carlson, Family & Local History Engagement Lead at The National Archives, says: “The Valuation Office maps are a key resource for house and local history, and this project is an exciting development for future research. Oxfordshire is an excellent addition to this growing set of online resources, and the variety of residences it covers reveals some fascinating insights into communities before the First World War.”

Known as the Lloyd George Domesday Survey, we now have over 2 million records in this collection, covering all boroughs of Greater London plus Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and West Hertfordshire, along with the newly added Oxfordshire.

New Wartime British Jewish Newspapers 28 July 2023

We have just released a significant batch of The Jewish Chronicles from the First World War and The Jewish Echo (Scotland and Ireland’s only Jewish paper from the time) covering years during the build up to World War 2.

These newspapers offer the opportunity to traverse through time and witness the pivotal moments that shaped the lives of the Jewish community throughout the war. Accompanying this great resource are the seatholders for the Crosby Street Synagogue in New York, with fascinating details of how it came to be. These records join the substantial holdings of Jewish records on TheGenealogist, including Seatholders of London Synagogues between 1920 and 1939, The Jewish Year Books from 1896 to 1939 and the Jewry Book of Honour (1914-1918).