Genealogy Resources

Genealogy Resources 

These Genealogy Resources are all websites I have found useful in investigating my family tree. 

Family Tree Websites:

These websites allow you to create your family tree and receive hints and tips based on the records you add. I list them in each section for their potential usefulness and UK.

Transcribed Records

Countless genealogy enthusiasts give up their spare time transcribing historical records in counties across the UK. The most useful of these are organised into databases of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, taken from church records and the like.  Many are available free of charge.

    • FreeREG  Free
      FreeREG aims to provide free internet searches of baptism, marriage, and burial records, transcribing records from parish registers, non-conformist records and other relevant sources in the UK.

    • FreeCEN Free
      Free access to many of the UK census records for the years 1841 – 1911

    • FreeBMD  Free
      FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records.

Other Genealogical Research

    • Family History Federation
      This organisation supports family history groups and family history researchers in general. It lists regional family history societies.

    • The Society of Genealogists 
      The Society of Genealogists is a charity with a unique purpose – to help people discover their place in history. It is a hub for finding records of all types (subscription-based), and you can sign up for the free The Genealogy Gazette, a monthly newsletter packed with family history news from around the community, hints, tips, and more. 

    • The Peerage: 
      A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.

    • Resources for Victorian Research
      This is essentially a website for researchers from the USA looking to research the Victorian period.  There are some links which may prove useful to researchers in the UK.

    • Find a Grave
      This website proclaims to be the “World’s largest gravesite collection”, and it is certainly a handy database. 

    • Connected Histories
      … brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth century Britain with a single federated search that allows sophisticated searching of names, places and dates.

Newspaper Archives

    • The British Newspaper Archive
      This is mostly a subscription website though they do have a pay-as-you-go service. Some records are available free of charge.

General

    • The Internet Archive
      AKA the WayBack Machine, the Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

    • Google Online Books
      Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database.

    • National Archives Palaeography 
      Palaeography is the study of old handwriting. This web tutorial will help you learn to read the handwriting found in documents written in English between 1500 and 1800.

    • ARCHI – Old Maps 
      ARCHI is a unique interactive mapping system and worldwide database of archaeological, historic, and cultural site GPS location data. The revolutionary ARCHI search engine features a variety of visual historical and geographical research aids, including old maps.

Specific Topics

    •  The Ship’s List
    • The ShipsList website will help you find your ancestors on ships’ passenger lists. We also have immigration reports, newspaper records, shipwreck information, ship pictures, ship descriptions, shipping-line fleet lists, as well as hundreds of passenger lists to Canada, USA, Australia and even some for South Africa.

    • HEICS Ship’s Logs
      Ship Logs and Journals of some of the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) vessels.

    • Europeans in East Africa
      The database holds information on people of European origin who lived and worked in East Africa from about 1880 to 1939.

Library and Institution Collections

    • The National Archives:
      Explore 1,000 years of UK history. It holds more than 37 million descriptions of records held by The National Archives and more than 3,500 archives across the country. Over 9 million records are available for download.

    • JSTOR:
      Explore millions of high-quality primary sources and images from around the world, including artworks, maps, photographs, and more.

    • FIBIS – Families in British India Society
      Helps individuals research their ancestors in India.

    • Qatar Digital Library:
      The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) is a vast archive featuring the cultural and historical heritage of the Gulf and wider region freely available online for the first time. It includes archives, maps, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs and much more, complete with contextualised explanatory notes and links, in both English and Arabic.

UK Government Websites

    • The British Library
      The National Library of the UK collects everything published today, tomorrow and decades into the future. They have millions of books, newspapers, maps, sound recordings, patents and stamps.

    • The Gazette – Official Public Record
      The Gazette is one of the official journals of record or government gazettes of the Government of the United Kingdom. It contains records such as Wills & Probate notices, and Company Profiles.

Military Research

    • The Imperial War Museum:
      This website links to a range of resources allowing you to trace your family service records.

    • Royal Airforce Commands
      This is a well-organised website providing lists and brief details of RAF Casualties, POWs, and other details during the Second World War.

    • Commonwealth War Graves Commission
      The Commission’s mission is to ensure those who died in service, or as a result of conflict, are commemorated so that they, and the human cost of war, are remembered forever. Their website has a search facility to find individual graves.

Pre-1500 Records (Medieval)

    • Medieval Soldier
      This database contains the names of soldiers serving the English crown between 1369 and 1453.

    • England’s Immigrants 1330 – 1550 
      A fully searchable database containing over 64,000 names of people known to have migrated to England during the period of the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death, the Wars of the Roses and the Reformation

General UK History

    • British History Online:
      British History Online is a collection of nearly 1300 volumes of primary and secondary content relating to British and Irish history, and histories of empire and the British world. BHO also provides access to 40,000 images and 10,000 tiles of historic maps of the British Isles.

    • Historic England 
      Historic England is the public body that records and lists historic buildings, landscapes, etc.

Website Under Review

Gedcom files

Genealogy Resources