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WEBSITES FEATURED IN WEB WATCH

For ease of viewing the websites mentioned in “Web Watch”, a regular feature of our quarterly journal, the whole article is reproduced below. 

Since websites, their content and their links are prone to frequent change, or even removal, we will only display the articles from the previous four issues of the journal.

Vol 31, No 1:  September 2017

The National Archives - http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
TNA have added the Northamptonshire section of the Manorial Documents Register.

Vol 30, No 4:  June 2017

Ancestry - http://www.ancestry.co.uk
Ancestry have added the Metropolitan Police Pension Registers 1852 – 1932 from TNA MEPO21.  Also UK Military Discharge Index of 371,000 soldiers born between 1866 and 1901 discharged after 1921.  City of London and Tower Hamlets cemetery registers 1841 – 1966 have been added with records from cemeteries in  Manchester, Waltham Forest, Oxford, Great Yarmouth and Ealing.  Wiltshire Parish Registers are now online (both images and indexes) for 1538-1916.

Find My Past - http://www.findmypast.co.uk
FMP have added transcripts for Kent parishes Bapchild, Brompton, Chatham, New Gillingham, Kilndown, Tenterden, Wingham and Wittersham, and for North West Kent.  Over a million more parish records have been added for Nottinghamshire.  Also 290,  records for the City of York – taxes, prisoners, apprentices, freemen, deeds, schools and militia rolls.  London livery records for ironmongers cover 1511 – 1939.  Indexes to Wiltshire parish registers provide an alternative to Ancestry's index.  Scottish Catholic and Irish Quaker records have been added.

The Genealogist - http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/index.php 
The Genealogist have added a large collection of records on the British in India, parish records for Durham, Worcestershire and Hampshire (BTs), school and university records for London, and various poll books.
 
Family Search - https://familysearch.org/
The LDS have added parish records for Warwickshire, Norfolk, Northumberland, Manchester and Essex (BTs) and non-conformist records for Northumberland.

Scotland's People - https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/
Scotland's People have improved the search options for marriages and deaths from 1855 plus other enhancements, with more to come.

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales - https://rcahmw.gov.uk   They have uploaded two digital maps showing the boundaries of the commotes (cymydau) and cantrefs (cantrefi) of medieval Wales.

Tips on searching FindMyPast from Peter Calver -
https://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/midmay17news.htm
and info on 1939 Register Area Codes - http://lostcousins.com/newsletters2/1939RegisterAreaCodes.htm

Graces Guide - http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Main_Page
Detailed information on historic businesses, their owners, biographies, photos.

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/free-tutorials
5  free tutorials and other guides to military records.

St. Andrews University - https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/biographical-register/
Alumni for 1747 to 1897.

The Family History Guide - http://www.thefhguide.com/index.html
Free learning, research, and training center for genealogy, especially Family Search.

And finally, origins of strange names -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4333608/Britain-s-weird-wonderful-places-Thong-Fryup.html
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20170208-how-tube-stations-got-their-hilarious-names

Vol 30, No 3:  March 2017

New GRO Indexes - http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/

Births for 1916 are now included.

Ancestry - http://www.ancestry.co.uk

They have added London Transport Staff Registers for 1863 to 1931. Other London records include Gamekeepers' Licences, Applications for Membership of the Stock Exchange 1802 to 1924, and Freedom of the City Admissions for 1681 to 1930. Parish registers for Somerset and Jersey have been added.

Find My Past - http://www.findmypast.co.uk

FMP have added 486,000 records with images for the Royal Irish Constabulary 1816 to 1922. 12,000 records from Scottish Non-Conformist parish registers have been transcribed. 64,000 Methodist baptisms and marriages have been added for Sheffield and Derbyshire. Monumental Inscriptions for St. Nicholas Chiswick have provided 12,000 transcriptions, together with 21,000 transcriptions from Middlesex War Memorials from 1845 to 1998. Gloucestershire Apprenticeship records for 1595 to 1700 has 20,000 records. For 17,000 Scottish black sheep, try the Prison Registers index 1828 to 1884. Kent parishes Wortham, Stansted, Wouldham, Southfleet, and Leybourne have added 36,000 records. The Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers and Irish Dog Licences are now complete. 40,000 more Dorset Monumental Inscriptions have been added and 175,000 more Warwickshire burials with 201,000 Monumental Inscriptions. Parish and probate records for Leicestershire and Rutland total 2.3 million and BTs for Norfolk 1.2 million. With TNA they have added 485,000 records for Royal Navy Allotment Declarations 1795 to 1852, 41,000 records for early emigrants to America and West Indies 1636 to 1815, and 55,000 records for the Royal African Company 1694 to 1743. The first additions for Roman Catholic parish registers cover Birmingham and Westminster. Electoral registers for Norfolk total over 4.5 milion. 295,000 records have been added to the Anglo-Boer War records. The Worcestershire Probate Index spans 1660 to 1858 with 51,000 records.

The Genealogist - http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/index.php

They have added Police Letter Books for Hampshire, colour Tithe Maps for Northumberland and Middlesex, parish records for Essex, Worcestershire, Norfolk Hampshire and Cumberland, Quarter Session records for Warwickshire, Middlesex, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Surrey, and re-scanned images of the 1891 Census.

Deceased Online – https://www.deceasedonline.com/servlet/GSDOSearch

Highgate Cemetery alphabetical calendars have been added with 166,000 burials. The date shown is the date that the burial was requested, not the actual date of burial.

Family Search - https://familysearch.org/

The LDS have added parish records for Derbyshire, Manchester, Warwickshire and Cornwall, BTs for Cambridgeshire and Devon, Valuation Office books for Ireland, Bristol Non-Conformist records, Scotland Church Records and Kirk Session Records 1658 to 1919, and the contemporary indexes to part of the Irish Registry of Deeds, for which a partial more detailed index is at http://irishdeedsindex.net/search/index.php.

Scotland's People - https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Images of births for 1916, marriages for 1941 and deaths for 1966 have been opened.

York's Archbishops Registers - https://archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/

Over 20,000 images of Registers produced by the Archbishops of York 1225 to 1650, with a growing searchable index of names, etc.

1642 Protestation Rolls - http://archivesmapsearch.labs.parliament.uk/

The House of Lords Archives has 3500 returns for various parishes. The link is to a map of the surviving ones. Peter Calver of Lost Cousins has provided a list of them, some in Kent, with a link to the image - http://www.lostcousins.com/newsletters2/ProtestationReturns.htm

GRO webpage showing all the BMD records that it holds -

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/events-recorded-in-england-wales-and-overseas/events-recorded-in-england-and-wales

Gibraltar Censuses - http://www.nationalarchives.gi/gna/Inhabitants.aspx

Search for free digitised genealogy books to browse or download -

https://www.gengophers.com

https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do

or search for all types of books -

http://www.archive.org

http://books.google.com

Examples of various certificates and other documents from Guy Etchells -

http://anguline.co.uk/cert/certificates.htm

Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland -

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199677764.001.0001/acref-9780199677764

Not open access, but data on 45,000 surnames with frequencies and origins.

Advice on how to index records - http://www.judywebster.com.au/methods.html

And finally, a free infographic timeline created from a Gedcom -

http://www.twile.com/numbers

Vol 30, No 2:  December 2016