News

New Headstones Release 08 January 2021

This release expands our Headstone Collection with over 55,000 new records. These are great for finding ancestors' names, dates and other details.

The fully searchable records with images allow family history researchers to find the inscriptions recorded on their ancestors' graves.

What’s Coming This Year? 01 January 2021

In 2021 TheGenealogist plans to release millions of new records to its subscription which aims to increase its coverage of a broad variety of records that are essential resources for family history researchers.

TheGenealogist’s MapExplorer™ will have additional Datasets and Features added including georeferenced image archive photographs. A range of new data layers will also be released allowing you to go to your ancestors parish, street and even their house.

Also, in partnership with The National Archives we will continue to add detailed maps down to street level into the MapExplorer™ as part of the Lloyd George Domesday Survey records.

TheGenealogist will be releasing key records covering Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England.

Other new releases will include:

• Additional Parish Records with images
• Catholic Records
• Extra Naturalisation Records
• Change of Names Records
• Criminal Records
• Army, Navy and Royal Air Force Operations Records
• A Large New Newspaper Collection!
• And much more!

Keep an eye on this page as we release new rescords throught the year, here's to a great 2021!

2020 Roundup 30 December 2020

During 2020 we added:-~

Over 16 and a half million individuals have been added to our parish records collection, with images across thirteen counties. These fully searchable records reach back to the mid 16th century, and allow family historians to find the names of forebears, their parents' forenames, the father's occupation (where noted), the parish that the event took place in and see the images of the original parish register.

We continued to add to our innovative Map Explorer™ with new recordsets this year, including adding our ongoing release of Lloyd George Domesday records. This unique online resource includes maps and field books and allows family historians the chance to discover where an ancestor lived in the period just before and as the First World War began. When used with the 1911 Census it gives lots of additional information about your ancestors' home, land, outbuildings and property. By making use of our powerful Map Explorer™, you can then see how the landscape where you ancestor lived or worked changed as the years progressed.

We released over 5.5 million records of R.A.F. Operations Record Books (ORBs) into our ever-expanding military records collection. This is the first time that these R.A.F. records have been made available in a form that is fully searchable by name, aircraft, location and many other fields, making it easier than ever for you to find your aviation ancestors.

Six counties of attractive Colour Tithe Maps and nine counties of Black and White Tithe Maps were also added to the versatile and powerful Map Explorer™ this last year. With this addition Victorian ancestors of all levels of society, who owned or occupied land, can be found in the maps and the linked apportionment schedules. All the maps have been georeferenced to allow you to find how an ancestor’s land relates to the changing landscape on other historical and modern maps by using the features of the Map Explorer™

allows you to search the census for a person, a family or even an address, helping you to identify elusive ancestors or those with common surnames. Instead of trawling through hundreds of thousands of John Smiths, specify his wife was Emma and their son was Mark to instantly refine down to one result! Using the keyword box you can search using an occupation, place of birth or address to narrow down your results. Ancestors' names aren't always recorded as we might expect. As well as using wildcards and filtering using the phonetic sound to look for variant spellings, you can leave the name boxes blank, entering just a keyword or two, a year of birth or selecting a county, which can be particularly useful for identifying name variations.

Keep a watch on the news as we are planning some huge additional record collections in 2021.

New Education Records Released 04 December 2020

We've released more College and University registers into our expanding Educational Records, adding a quarter of a million additional individuals. This release includes records from England, Scotland, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand and even a college from Portugal.

The records can be used to discover a student’s achievements and are fantastic for identifying where next to apply your research for an ancestor. Educational records will confirm birth dates and sometimes the place of birth. Usually, they give a father’s name and address, which is useful when the parent is missing from the census, and they can give details of the student’s occupation and a great deal more useful information.

Researchers can use this new data to find ancestors who attended or taught at a variety of Educational establishments in a wide range of years up to the mid 1930s. The earliest record in this release is dated 1566 in the Christ's Hospital Exhibitioners to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, 1566-1923. In contrast, the latest record is 1936 taken from the List of Occupants of Rooms in St John's College 1895-1936.

These records can also be used to identify those who held high office in the institutions, so that University patrons, deans, visitors, professors and masters and the principals and governors of schools are usually included.

Also in this release we have some fascinating Irish Examination Board records from 1889, 1891 and 1892. These reveal the candidates’ names, addresses and grades in all their subjects, including some rather unusual ones. If you can find an ancestor, within these records, it will certainly be an eyeopener as they disclose what subjects your forebear had been a good or a bad student of.

The registers released on TheGenealogist today are:

Read Nick Thorne's article on researching more about an ancestor from the leads revealed in the pages of Educational Records

New R.A.F. Operations Record Books released 20 November 2020

We have released additional new RAF records that are fully searchable by name, aircraft, location and many other fields, making it simpler to find your air force ancestors.

In a release of over 1.8 million records, this batch of RAF Operations Record Books (ORBs) joins our huge military records collection and includes entries for the famous children's author Roald Dahl when he flew Hurricanes in WW2.

The Operations Record Books record the stories of day to day operations of units and so will give the researcher an idea of action that took place as well as give insights into the everyday lives on the bases. You can use this collection to follow an airman's war time experiences by searching these fully searchable Air Ministry operations record books which cover various Royal Air Force, dominion and Allied Air Force squadrons that came under British Command.

These new records uncover a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian, medical inventor and the world's greatest children's author. Of course, we're talking about Roald Dahl and you can read about his adventures in these new records, such as when his plane crashed and burst into flames on the desert floor between his own forces and enemy lines. Read our article which includes official versions of some of the exploits that he retold in his books!

New Lloyd George Domesday records for Lambeth and Surrounding Areas 06 November 2020

We have just released the records of over 83,000 individuals for the Lambeth area into our property ownership and occupancy record set. This unique online resource includes maps and field books and gives family historians the chance to discover where an ancestor lived in the period just before and as the First World War began.

This is a great tool to use with the 1911 Census giving lots of additional information about your ancestors' home, land, outbuildings and property. By making use of our powerful Map Explorer™ the researcher can see how the landscape where their ancestor lived or worked changed as the years have passed.

The Lloyd George Domesday Survey plans include plots for the exact properties and are married to various georeferenced historic map overlays and modern base maps on the Map Explorer™. With this resource the researcher is able to thoroughly investigate the area in which an ancestor lived.

• Link individual properties to extremely detailed maps used in 1910-1915
• Fully searchable by name, county, parish and street
• The maps will zoom down to show the individual properties as they were in the 1910s
• The transparency slider reveals a modern street map underlay
• Change the base map displayed to more clearly understand what the area looks like today

Lambeth records cover the civil parishes of Bishop's, Brixton, Brixton North, Clapham North, Clapham South, Lower Norwood, Marsh North, Marsh South, Norwood, Prince's, Stockwell North, Stockwell South, Streatham and Vauxhall.

Complete set of Anglican Parish Records for Wales Launched with Images 23 October 2020

All Anglican Parish Registers for Wales can now be searched on TheGenealogist, in association with Welsh Archives. This huge release contains 8 million Parish Records, listing over 14.5 million individuals, with images of the original registers.

Our keyword search makes it surprisingly easy to find the record you're after, using either the modern, old or Welsh version of a place name and our unique SmartSearch allows you to find families listed in the registers.

These records complement our nonconformist records for Wales which include Methodists, Quakers and more, giving you the ultimate resource for finding your Welsh ancestors' vital events.

Click here to read more about these records

This release includes all historic Welsh counties:- Anglesey, Brecknockshire, Caernarfonshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Glamorgan, Merionethshire, Monmouthshire, Montgomeryshire, Pembrokeshire and Radnorshire.

This release has been made possible by the participation of the following archives:- Anglesey Archives, Carmarthenshire Archive Service, Ceredigion Archives, Conwy Archive Services, Denbighshire Archives, Flintshire Record Office, Glamorgan Archives, Gwent Archives, Gwynedd Archives Service, Pembrokeshire Archives and Local Studies, Powys Archives and West Glamorgan Archive Service.

Ruth Jones, co-creator of the popular comedy Gavin & Stacey discovers her ancestors in the records, you can read about Ruth's discoveries here.