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UK wide resources

Heilan Lass

Heilan Lass

LostCousins Member
The British History on Line website is a great resource for historical information of all sorts, not just genealogical, although a lot of the sections include names. I find I can happily waste a couple of hours just browsing through the site to "pad out" my ancestors' lives and times so be warned!
 
If you are not familiar with English and Welsh BMD certificates, or even if you would just like to know more about them, there is a very helpful site here that gives very detailed information.
 
Scottish BMDs typically have more information than their English & Welsh counterparts. The following is a description of what details are available online to download from Scotland's People (You can click on the sample images to see them full size).

Births: 1855 birth records were very detailed and are a boon to the family historian. In addition to details about the child (date, place and time of birth, full name, sex), the parents' names (including maiden surname of mother), father's occupation, name of informant and relationship to child, an 1855 birth certificate also contains information on siblings, the ages and birthplaces of both parents, their usual residence and the date and place of their marriage. Such detail proved difficult to sustain and entries were modified from 1856. Information on siblings was removed, as were ages and birthplaces of parents and date and place of parents' marriage. In birth certificates since 1861 however, the date and place of the parents' marriage was reinstated.
sample1855birth.jpg Sample 1855 Marriage Entry (only 3 entries shown as it is a double page spread of the register)

Marriages: 1855 marriage records give full name, age, marital status, occupation, usual residence, date and place of marriage, name and occupation of father, name and maiden name of mother, and names of witnesses and the officiating clergy. They also include the birthplace and number of former marriages of each spouse (plus the number of children by those marriages). Birthplaces and previous marriage details were dropped after 1855, but the former was restored from 1972.
sample1855marriage.jpg Sample 1855 Marriage Entry (again only 3 entries shown as it is a double page spread of the register)

Deaths : 1855 death records show the date, time and place of death, deceased's name, sex, marital status, age and occupation, cause of death, duration of last illness, doctor's name and details of the informant. In addition, they show the usual residence, the deceased's place of birth, spouse's name, parents' names, occupations and whether they were deceased, names and ages of children or age and year of death if the child pre-deceased the parent. Up to 1860, the place of burial, the name of the undertaker and when the doctor last saw the deceased alive, were also included. As with births and marriages, this amount of detail had proved difficult to maintain. The deceased's birthplace was removed from 1856, as were the names of any children. The spouses name was also not required from 1856, but was reinstated in 1861.
sample1855death.jpg Sample 1855 Death Entry (again only 3 entries shown as it is a double page spread of the register)
 
The Francis Frith collection has a wide collection of old photographs and maps from all over the UK and is a great resource for anyone wanting to have an idea of what the area that their ancestors lived in looked like. Photos can be saved to a personal album within the site for ease of reference in the future. The site can be searched by county then place name here.
 
The Historical Directories website is digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales, from 1750 to 1919. It contains high quality reproductions of comparatively rare books, essential tools for your research into local and genealogical history. The directories are usually searchable by county and town, and contain a description of the area together with it's facilities, names and occupations of landowners, tradespeople, clergy, etc.
 
Old Handwriting deciphering aid - this site gives examples, in alphabetical sequence, of old Law letters/writing which may be of help when trying to read older documents like Wills, PRs, etc.
 
There is a ScottishHandwriting.com site which has online tutorials about Secretary Hand and other forms of writing. This may well be useful to people outside Scotland too as Secretary Hand wasn't just a Scottish handwriting system.

The Scottish Handwriting site even has several test quiz where you can read an old letter and try out your skills in reading the missing words.
 
Does anyone know the iAnnounce site? I just came across it. It says it has family announcements from UK newspapers for the recent past. I'm not sure how far back it goes and haven't been able to find out except in searching there are some 2008 entries. However I can't find mention of a "cousin" who died in 2010. It appears to cover regional newspapers. Since her death was listed in the Telegraph, I would have thought she would have been in the local press as well.:confused: She was aged 100.
It looks as if it should be useful so wondering if anyone has found it so.
 
I took a look but it is so non specific that when you type up a name it shows up hundreds. I tried to filter a name but the date range would only allow the furtherest back to be 'last two months', even though some of the information shows up from 2009 for the name i typed in. It's a pity as it could be a useful site.
 
Yes I noticed that. You can put a date in as a search term along with a name - or use Google and do a site search I suppose.
 
Heilan Lass said:
Do you have a criminal amongst your ancestors? Find out at the Victorian Crime and Pnishment website! There is a searchable database (by no means complete yet I suspect) and an interesting section on 19th century justice.
Click to expand...
I had a look at this site, Heilan Lass, by puttiung in two very unusual surnames from my family tree. In both cases I knew from London's People, the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) site and Ancestry that there were several members of these families who had been sentenced (and more than once) to hard labour in Kent, Surrey and London, but neither of my names came up on this site. Perhaps it is still growing. It all goes to show that we should leave no stone unturned!
 
Heilan Lass said:
Do you have a criminal amongst your ancestors? Find out at the Victorian Crime and Pnishment website! There is a searchable database (by no means complete yet I suspect) and an interesting section on 19th century justice.
Click to expand...
It didn't take me very long to discover that every record I looked at related to Bedford prison, so I suspect it's just a copy of the Bedford Gaol index (which is mentioned on the Bedfordshire Resources page) though prettier and with photos.

This is the sort of thing that the person posting the link needs to find out before recommending a site - saying "by no means complete yet I suspect" doesn't let you off the hook.

Please note that there are guidelines for posting links in the New Members area of the forum.
 
Cathy said:
Does anyone know the iAnnounce site? I just came across it. <snipped>
It looks as if it should be useful so wondering if anyone has found it so.
Click to expand...

Yes - I've come across the site, usually when I've put a name into Google. The site itself isn't the friendliest. Some notices are good and very useful; others are hopeless. I remember a 30th birthday which provided no information about who the relatives were. I wish it went back further and that more old obits were online.
 
Well I guess a 30th isn't the time for giving details of identity.
I've just been reading old obits today from Newspapers on findmypast (same as on British Newspapers). One from 1919 confirming my suspicion that a young relative died of flu and one from 1940 giving a summary of his life and a lovely list of relatives attending the funeral including where they lived and where his two sisters who couldn't be there were living.
 
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