Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
TheGenealogist has extended its UK Parish Records collection with a new and exclusive release of 650,000 parish records for Nottinghamshire. These records can be used to find your ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials in these fully searchable records that cover parishes from this important East Midland county of England. With records that reach back to1633, this release includes the records of 56 parishes, including:
369,100 individuals in Baptisms, 168,000 individuals in Marriages and 112,800 individuals in Burials
You can use these transcripts to find the names of ancestors, parents’ forenames (in the case of baptisms), father’s occupation (where noted), abode or parish, parish that the event took place in, the date of the event, and in the case of marriage records the bride’s maiden name and the witnesses’ names.
Lord Byron
Amongst the notable Nottinghamshire people that can be found in these records are the infamous Lord Byron and his brilliant mathematician daughter Ada, Countess of Lovelace. Both are buried in the parish of Hucknal Torkard. As well as nobility, in this collection we also come across the baptism of Amos Hind. He was famous for playing First Class Cricket for the neighbouring county of Derbyshire between 1876 and 1877. Amos died aged 82 in 1931.
These additions brings their Nottinghamshire parish record collection to over 919,800 records.To search these records and many more see TheGenealogist.co.uk
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
Departure of the RMS Campania from Liverpool
TheGenealogist keeps on adding records for its subscribers and this week it has just uploaded online another four and a half million BT27 records for the 1920s. This tranche of Outbound Passenger Lists are really quite fascinating for the variety of people that can be found departing by sea from British ports in the years between 1920 and 1929. TheGenealogist already boasts a strong Immigration,Emigration, Naturalisation and passenger list resource on its site and by adding this decade of records TheGenealogist have been significantly expanded its offering for those of us looking to find our ancestors’ travels.
The fully searchable records that they have released will allow researchers to:
Identifypotential family members travelling together by using their clever SmartSearch. TheGenealogist has a unique system that is able to recognise family members travelling together on the same voyage. In the case of several people with the same surname on the same boat journey then it will display a family icon which then allows you the researcher to view the entire family with just a single click.
Find people travelling to America, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia and elsewhere in the Passenger lists of people leaving from the United Kingdom by sea.
See images of the original documents which were kept by the Board of Trade’s Commercial and Statistical Department and its successors.
Discover the ages, last address and where the passenger intended to make their permanent residence.
These fully indexed records enable family historians to search by name, year, country of departure, country of arrival, port of embarkation and port of destination.
Those family history researchers who have ancestors that may have travelled from the British Isles will welcome this terrific new release from TheGenealogist. It certainly adds an interesting decade, after the First World War, to their Immigration and Emigration collection. These records, which are already online, include passenger lists that go back as far as 1896 as well as the valuable Naturalisation and Denization records that researchers can use to find ancestors who came to this country and made their home here.
Below is an article that I wrote for TheGenealogist highlighting some of the well known names that can be found taking a passage on a liner in the 1920s
The 1920s decade of Outbound Passenger Lists reveal our ancestors’ travels, as well as those of many famous individuals.
Records that chart our ancestors international journeys can be really useful for building the stories of their lives. The documents can help explain where an ancestor has gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, and it was certainly not just the top echelons of society that will appear in passenger lists. In the past all sorts of people booked passages on ships for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they were emigrating for a better life or travelling abroad on business? For this reason we can find the voyages of our ancestors ranging from Labourers to Lords and Artisans to Authors.
TheGenealogist has just added another decade of the always intriguing BT27 records to its growing number of Passenger Lists. These fully searchable records were originally kept by the Board of Trade and listed the details of outbound passengers from U.K. ports. With this release we can now find voyages going across the Atlantic to North America and to the countries of the Empire and beyond. A search of these records can reveal our forebears departing from this country and in amongst their numbers are also included a large number of famous names from the past.
This new release has the likes of Master Douglas Fairbanks Jr, aged 13, who became a famous film star, returning to the United States from a visit to England and travelling on the White Star Line’s ship the Celtic. He is travelling with James and Betty Sally Evans. This appears to be a misrecording of his mother’s name, Anna Beth Sully Evans and James is his stepfather. They were on a 21 day passage to New York departing from Liverpool on the 11th June 1921. We can glean from the passenger lists the ages of passengers, who they were travelling with, and the country of their intended permanent residence – all of which can be useful to our family history research when we find an ancestor in the results.
Douglas Fairbanks Jr travelling with his mother and stepfather 11 June 1921
Researching in the passenger lists of this 1920s period of sea travel throws up many other famous names of the times. The 25 year old Harry G. Selfridge Jr, son of the founder of the London department store Selfridges, is one. We can also find the war poet Siegfried L. Sassoon and from the top ranks of the British Army there is Field Marshal Haig and Lt General Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts. Turning to the world of politics we come across David Lloyd George, the Liberal politician who became the wartime Prime Minister. Here he is travelling with his wife, Dame Margaret and their daughter Megan who would herself go on to become the first female M.P. for a Welsh constituency. By using TheGenealogist’s unique SmartSearch feature we can identify the family members travelling together on a voyage by clicking on the family icon.
On a voyage to Gibraltar in April 1927 we can find the 63 year old widow, Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst, the one time leader of the Suffragette movement. Without Mrs Pankhurst and her fellow suffragettes campaigning for the right for women to have the vote, then Megan Lloyd George would not have even been able to cast her ballot, let alone have had the right to stand for election to the House of Commons.
David Lloyd George MP travelling with his wife, Dame Margaret and daughter, Megan, to Rio De Janeiro 21st December 1927Mrs Emmeline Pankhurst London to Gibraltar 8th April 1927 on the P&O ship Naldera
There are numerous authors to be found in these records. In February 1926 Hilaire Belloc, who was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century, made the short hop across the channel from Southampton to Cherbourg. The 55 year old was onboard the Orduna, a vessel of The Royal Mail Steam Packet company on its way to New York. Belloc gave his address as The Reform Club SW1, but for others the passenger lists can reveal the details of an ancestor’s home address before they travelled – information which can be very useful when there is no census to consult for the time period in question. For example, the entry for the 21 year old Noel Coward, travelling on the Southampton to New York run of Cunard’s Aquitania that left on the 4th June 1921 – Coward gave his address as 111 Ebury Street London. This was the premises that his parents ran as a lodging house and it was where he kept a room while he travelled abroad. It was also the address where he wrote The Vortex, his first notable successful play. His occupation on the passenger list for June 1921 was that of an Actor. In later transatlantic crossings, however, he is sometimes recorded as a Dramatist, an Author and as a Playwright.
Noel Coward’s home address was 111 Elbury Street, London
Searching for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s sea voyages in this decade of BT27 Passenger Lists released by TheGenealogist, we see that the creator of Sherlock Holmes gives his address as 15 Buckingham Palace Mansions. This was actually the flat that the famous author and his second wife kept opposite the entrance to Victoria Station, although their main home was in Sussex and in other trips that address is recorded in the passenger lists.
Browsing the names of his fellow first class passengers we can see that the Literary agent Eric Seabrooke Pinker was also onboard and we can wonder if the two men mixed on the voyage. The arts were well represented on this trip as also travelling on the same ship was the artist Augustus John. John was a Welsh painter, draughtsman and etcher who had been an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom for a short time around 1910 and by the 1920s Augustus John was Britain’s leading portrait painter.
Arthur Conan Doyle and family travelling on the Olympic to New York 28 March 1923
Passenger lists are certainly fascinating documents that can reveal our ancestors overseas voyages and so help add detail to the stories of their lives. They can also be used to clarify where people have gone when we can’t find them in the records at home, as it is all levels of society that can be found in these records. This particular decade seems also to be very rich in the names of the famous as they departed from U.K. ports on their overseas travels.
See these and many more engaging family history records at TheGenealogist.
Disclosure: Please note this post contains affiliate links.
This piece of news was released by the team at TheGenealogist.
The data subscription site has just launched a new collection of Police Letter Books for Hampshire. This is an intriguing mixture of promotions, retirements, movements, and other observations about Police officers in this county from 1891 to 1911. In amongst its pages you will be able to trace the career of your Hampshire police ancestors as they rise or fall.
These records reveal names and collar numbers of officers promoted, reduced in rank or dismissed from the force for committing various acts of misconduct. The misdemeanors often seem to involve alcohol, ranging from accepting a glass of beer to being drunk on duty. For those more competent officers who were commended for their actions in the pages of these documents, you can read the actions that had been seen as deserving of inclusion in the Letter Books.
In addition, TheGenealogist has released the Colour Tithe Maps for Northumberland. These maps join the previously released greyscale maps for the majority of the country that are already published on TheGenealogist.
Contains over 600 colour maps, linking to over 62,000 tithe records for this county
These maps are a fantastic resource that enable you to see where your ancestors owned or occupied land in Northumberland
The only online National collection of tithe records and maps
Bilton Tithe Map from Northumberland
Tithe map of All Saints, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Northumberland on TheGenealogist
The searchable schedules, or apportionment books, contain detailed information on land use and these are linked to the maps on TheGenealogist. Clicking through from the transcript to a map will jump straight to the plot for an individual and can reveal buildings, fields, houses, rivers, lakes, woods and also cover villages, towns and cities.
A case study using one of the new record sets
The Ups and Down of a life on the beat
The latest release of Police Letter Books for Hampshire is an eclectic mix of details of promotions and removals of officers (postings from one place to another), as well as recording such things as additional pay and a number of disciplinary matters that were handed out to the policemen of the Hampshire County Constabulary.
If we search for one late Victorian police officer in the records, named John William Walsh, we can see that P.C. 82 J W Walsh had set out on his employment in the force around 1893. On the 12th June of that year, our 3rd class Police Constable appears first in the Letter Books when he was being sent from headquarters to serve at Kingsclere Police station. As this officer appears no less than nineteen times in the records between 1893 and 1911, we can see that he was a career policeman having probably set his sights on progressing through the ranks. By the end of that same year, on the 8th November 1893, he had been transferred to Totton and promoted to 2nd Class Constable.
So far so good for John Walsh. In 1898 he had made 1st Class Constable and then the job took him to Brockenhurst.
January 1900 sees a blip in his job prospects when he failed his Sergeant’s exam, which is duly recorded in the records – but he bounces back a few months later. By the 18th June 1900, when he gets his coveted promotion to Sergeant and is ‘removed’ to Petersfield the same day, we now see that he has been allocated collar number 14. He crops up in the Police Letter Books in a note of an entitlement to extra pay for 13 days in 1905 and then in 1906 saw him reach the pinnacle of his career as he is promoted to Inspector!
What could possibly go wrong?
These new records on TheGenealogist show that, conversely, 1906 was also the worst year for John Walsh’s path up the ranks of the Hampshire County Constabulary. Promoted to Inspector in January 1906; in October he was on the way back down!
The Police Letter book for the 18th October 1906 sadly reveals that our Inspector, of nine months, was to be reduced in ranks to that of a 1st Class Constable. This must have been devastating for him and his family as he was not just going down one rank, to Sergeant, but back to where he had been eight years before. His offence: being drunk while on duty in Holdenhurst Road, Bournemouth.
A lesser man may have considered his position in the police, but not John Walsh. From the records we find the newly numbered P.C.165 removed from Bournemouth to Farringdon on the same day that he had been busted down in rank. A year later, in 1907, and he has been promoted to Sergeant for the second time in his police career. He is posted to Basingstoke with this rank with yet another change in collar number to 35. It was on the 22nd November 1911 that we see he had climbed further still. It was not quite to the rank that he had lost in 1906, but J Walsh was now a Sergeant Major in the force and was removed to Winchester.
Using these new records on TheGenealogist has enabled us to follow the ups and downs of one particular police officer who, like many of his colleagues, came a cropper through partiality to a drink. If you have Policeman ancestors from Hampshire then search this collection to find interesting mentions of them as they are removed to new stations across the county, are commended for catching thieves, receive promotions, or are sometimes disciplined for their actions.
TheGenealogist has just launched a new collection of British telephone directories. Complementing the early UK Telephone Directory from 1899-1900 that is already available on TheGenealogist, this new release includes the 1907 Post Office National Directory which adds a resource for finding names and addresses before the 1911 census. This directory was published at a time when the telephone was becoming more important to our ancestors. The Post Office’s first coin-operated call box had been installed at London’s Ludgate Circus just the year before, and Trunk (long distance) telephone charges were reduced to half-price for telephone calls made after 7pm and before 7am.
In addition, and at the same time, TheGenealogist has released the 1938 South Wales District Post Office Telephone Directory. The big contrast between this and the earlier directories are that so many more ordinary people had become telephone subscribers. For this reason the directories were by now split up into regions to cope with the large number of names and addresses.
Containing names and address details for subscribers the telephone directories are a useful resource for discovering ancestors who had a phone
Find private names and small businessmen’s addresses. If your ancestor worked as a fishmonger, butcher, ironmonger or bootmaker, then all these and more feature in the fascinating records.
The difference between the turn of the century directories and the 1938 South Wales District Directory is marked by the number of new telephone subscribers, so making it possible to find many more ancestor’s names and addresses.
In a snapshot example from the 1907 Post Office National Directory we can see that in Cardiff that subscribers included various business including a furniture remover and funeral director, fruit merchants, fishmonger, a commercial traveller and some private individuals.
1907 Post Office National Directory.
By the late 1930s the various regions now contained tightly packed names and addresses with many more private subscribers for the family historian to research.
1938 Post Office Directory for Cardiff.
TheGenealogist has also just released online the United States WWII Prisoner of War records to compliment those that are already online for British and former Empire Prisoners of War of the Germans in WWI and WWII.
These new records reveal the names of U.S. military as well as U.S. and some Allied civilians who were prisoners of war and internees
Covering the years 1942 – 1947, Prisoners of both Germany and Japan are included in this collection
The record for each prisoner provides:
Name
Casualty status
Rank
Service number
PoW camp
Regiment, branch of service or civilian status
Home town or place of enlistment
Date reported
Race
State of residence
Example
Searching these PoW records we can find Robert A. “Bob” Hoover, the former air show pilot and United States Air Force test pilot. Known as the “pilot’s pilot”, Hoover transformed aerobatic flying in his time and many in the world of aviation saw him as one of the greatest pilots ever to have lived. In the Second World War he was a fighter pilot.
Robert A “Bob” Hoover by WPPilot (Own work)
[CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
During World War II, Hoover was posted to Casablanca where he test flew the assembled aircraft to ensure that they were ready for service. Later in the war he was re-assigned to the Spitfire-equipped American 52d Fighter Group in Sicily. In 1944, and on his 59th mission of the conflict, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by a German plane off the coast of Southern France. Taken prisoner, he then spent 16 months at the German prison camp Stalag Luft 1 in Barth, Germany, which we can see from these new records on TheGenealogist.
Prisoner of War records on TheGenealogist.
These records are derived from the National Archives and Records Administration, World War II Prisoners of War, 1941-1946.
In another record release TheGenealogist have added over 37,450 individuals to their Baptism Transcripts for Worcestershire in partnership with Malvern Family History Society, expanding their coverage and bringing the total to over 2 million individuals. These records range from the years 1544 to 1891.
To search these records take a look now at TheGenealogist now.
While reading the latest news from the Society of Genealogist I came across an announcement for a half day course being held at the society’s head quarters in London called:
“My Ancestors Came from the Channel Islands”
It had previously been scheduled for the end of the month and has now been brought forward to 24/10/2015 10:30 – 13:00 – So anyone who hasn’t realised this yet and who intended to go then make a note in your diary that this course has been moved from its original date of 31 October.
If you have forbears form this part of the world and want to learn more about how to research them then as I write this they still have some space.
On which of the Channel Islands did your ancestors originate?
Are your cousins still there?
This half-day course will cover sources of genealogical and historical sources of information about Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. The course will include data that can be accessed in the Society of Genealogists library, online and on the islands in archives, libraries, registries and museums. Relevant contact details of historical and family history organisations will be provided.
with Dr Colin Chapman.
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Books on Channel Island Ancestors
Pen & Sword books have the following editions of Marie-Louise Backhurst’s comprehensive book on Tracing Your Channel Island Ancestors for sale. Check out the different editions with these links:
It looks like it has been a pretty busy month for The British Newspaper Archive website. They have introduced lots of new titles to expand their database and have also broadened the year ranges of their existing titles. The website is a wonderful source for family tree research to flesh out the story of your ancestors.
So even if you have used The British Newspaper Archive website in the past, you may still want to re-vist them to see if you can track down your ancestors in the extra pages and titles that have been recently added.
To check which new titles and issues have been added to the site in the past 30 days you only need to visit the ‘Newspaper Titles’ page at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk !
Here are a few of the many new titles and issues that have just been added to the site.
New Title – ‘The Staffordshire Advertiser’
The latest newspaper to be added to the website for the Midlands is ‘The Staffordshire Advertiser’, from 1801 to 1839. While I haven’t found any of my ancestors came from this region I have found adverts placed by some of my forebears who were in business in many regional titles. This paper was established by Joshua Drewry (c.1773-1841) in Stafford in 1795, the paper went on to become the main county newspaper for Staffordshire.
New Title – ‘The Shoreditch Observer’
For those of us with ancestors that went up to the London area, the addition of ‘The Shoreditch Observer’ for 1863 to the website is to be welcomed. It rejoiced in the strapline of: ‘A journal of local intelligence for Bishopsgate, St. Luke, Hackney, Kingsland, Bethnal-Green, and the Tower Hamlets’, ‘The Shoreditch Observer’ contains an excellent round-up of local news, adverts and notices so worth a trawl.
New Issues – ‘The Western Gazette’ (1950)
With some of my family tree being in the west of England this latest addition to the website now meas that I can search the ‘The Western Gazette’ from 1863 right through to 1950 for family members. If, like me, you’re carrying out historical research in any of Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire, then this weekly newspaper will certainly help you with your searches.
New Issues – ‘The Evening Telegraph’ of Dundee (1904)
I have some Scots roots as well and so I am pleased to see that north of the border is not being left out. Still in publication, The Evening Telegraph is affectionately known by Dundonians as ‘The Tully’. With the addition of the 1904 issues, it’s now possible to read this Dundee institution from 1877 to 1904.
We have just had the Olympic torch go by today where I live. With a little bit of history being made makes me think about the games in years gone by. The Archive contains a terrific collection of stories about past Olympics, spanning the years 1894 to 1948.
Why ‘1894’?
Because there are also dozens of stories about the planning for the first Modern Games in 1896. From the lost luggage (and wine!) of the French Team in 1948 to worries about the Greek government’s finances for the 1896 Games – all Olympian life is there to be found.
What ever it is that you are researching, why not look at what can be found in The British Newspaper Archive website. Take a look today!
Who Do You Think You Are? Live is now just a few days away, and I am looking forward to seeing what the organisers promises to be “the biggest family history event the country has ever seen”.
The show takes place this weekend (24-26 February) in Olympia, London, and as ever will bring together exhibitors and organisations from the world of genealogy.
One of the biggest attractions that they promise at this year’s show will be the Irish section. So any of you out there with roots from the Emerald Isle should pop along to Olympia and discover some creative techniques to uncover new connections in that country that has always been just a little bit difficult to do research in before.
I’m also very much looking forward to the popular Celebrity Theatre which will see talks from the likes of actors Larry Lamb and Emilia Fox, and presenter Richard Madeley.
For those of us that are interested in our ancestor’s occupations the new section called Our Walking Past reveals ancestors’ trades to visitors. In the press release that I saw it promises that whether our forebears worked down a mine or owned it, built ships or sailed on them, we’re sure to find invaluable information from the experts on hand.
On Saturday there is the chance to book oneself a seat for the new Keynote Workshop which is due to start at 1pm. This informative talk will focus on recent issues in the world of genealogy, specifically the advancement of social media and how it can help you with your research.
Also to look out for are the Military Pavilion and the Society of Genealogists’ Workshop Programme of experts advice and demonstrations and you can find a complete schedule at www.whodoyouthinkyouarelive.com. Make sure you book yourself a place on the one you want as they tend to fill up quickly. The website and show Facebook page also have all the latest news, as well as great competitions and offers.
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