We are in the process of upgrading the site to implement a content management system.
UK and Ireland
The UK and Ireland are regarded, for the purposes of this Genealogical Information Service, as being made up of England, Ireland (i.e. Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland), Wales, and Scotland, together with the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Together, these constitute the British Isles - which is a geographical term for a group of islands lying off the north-west coast of mainland Europe. (Legally, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are largely self governing, and are not part of the United Kingdom.) The Administrative Regions into which the UK and Ireland are divided have changed frequently in recent years. However, in line with normal genealogical practice, this Information Service is structured according to the counties as shown in these maps of England, Scotland and Wales, and of Ireland, i.e., as they were prior to the re-organisation that took place in 1974 (1975 for Scotland).
- Archives & Libraries
- Bibliography
- Biography
- Cemeteries
- Census
- Chronology
- Church History
- Church Records
- Civil Registration
- Correctional Institutions
- Court Records
- Description & Travel
- Directories
- Dwellings
- Emigration & Immigration
- Gazetteers
- Genealogy
- Handwriting
- Heraldry
- Historical Geography
- History
- Jewish Records
- Land & Property
- Language & Languages
- Manors
- Maps
- Medical Records
- Merchant Marine
- Military History
- Military Records
- Names, Geographical
- Names, Personal
- Newspapers
- Nobility
- Occupations
- Periodicals
- Politics
- Poor Houses, Poor Law etc.
- Population
- Postal and Shipping Guides
- Probate Records
- Religion and Religious Life
- Schools
- Social life and Customs
- Societies
- Taxation
Archives and Libraries
- UK & Ireland - Archives and Libraries - links and information.
Bibliography
- UK & Ireland - Bibliography - links and information.
Biography
- Dictionary of National Biography Index and Epitome, ed. Sir Sidney Lee (1903), based on the 63-volume work. It's part of the Bolles London Collection in the Perseus Project, Tufts University in Massachusetts. This volume, with 30,378 biographical entries on English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish notables up to the late 19th century, grew into today's three-volume Concise DNB, and the entire DNB is now being revised by Oxford University Press.
- The BBC's Memoryshare website is "a living archive of memories from 1900 to the present day [to which readers] can contribute, share and browse memories of life experiences and see them in the context of recent and historical events."
- The Methodist Archives - Biographical Index
- The National Burial Index is hosted by findmypast (subscription site).
- For a complete list of current burial grounds see The CBA Directory of Cemeteries and Crematoria in the UK - London: Confederation of Burial Authorities 2001. ISBN: 0 9531834 1 6.
- Gravestone photograph resource: an "index of the names that appear on photos taken by the Gravestone Photographic Resource Project team". This valuable project provides email copies of any of its collection of grave monument images free of charge on request.
- The Deceased Online -"the first central database of statutory burial and cremation registers for the UK and Republic of Ireland" (subscription site).
Chronology
- Brian Pears has provided a list of the dates of Easter Sunday for the years 1550-2049 with a calendar for each year.
- Mike Spathaky provides a very informative paper: Old and New Style Dates and the Change to the Gregorian Calendar.
- For conversions between the Gregorian and Julian (and other) calendars see the Calendar Converter page.
- Chamber's Book of Days - "a miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar".
- Bob Sanders has provided Chronologies of British History:-
- The Albion College (Michigan) website has several pages relating to the English Calendar including a useful Regnal Year Calculator.
- An On-line Calendar of Saints Days produced by Glenn Gunhouse.
- British Isles Genealogy on the Internet: Timeline - a guide to the main developments on the Internet which are important for UK and Irish genealogy.
- TimeSearch - "Search the Web through Time".
- Our Time Lines - enables the placement of ancestors within historical events during their lifetimes.
Church History
- The GENUKI church database is being developed to help provide information about places of worship and burial grounds.
- Clergy of the Church of England - "a relational database documenting the careers of all Church of England clergymen between 1540 and 1835".
- The Methodist Church provides a list of Church, Circuit and District Websites.
- Methodist Heritage - "Telling the Story of the People Called Methodists".
- The Catholic History Website is a partnership of societies and individuals with an interest in Catholic history in the British Isles since the Reformation.
- Steve Bulmans "The Churches of Britain and Ireland" photograph collection.
- Geograph British Isles - contains many church photographs amongst its ever-growing collection.
- Index of Methodist Ministers and Probationers who have Died in the Work - provided by the Methodist Archives and Research Centre.
- A listing of the various County Online Parish Clerk schemes.
- Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers - provides a searchable database that is very useful for locating old churches.
- A Church Near You - a church search facility that in many cases gives maps with current Church of England parish boundaries.
- Archive of the Tablet - the Catholic News Weekly, founded 1840.
Church Records
- UK & Ireland - Church Records - links and information.
Civil Registration
- Information on Civil Registration in the countries of the British Isles
- Research your family history using the General Register Office - includes details of the GRO's certificate ordering service.
- The UK BMD web site offers links to over 400 web sites that provide on-line information for UK births, marriages and deaths.
Correctional Institutions
- The Complete Newgate Calendar is now online.
- Old Bailey Online - the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."
- Derek Wilcox's Black Sheep Index - "an index of Victims and Villains (and some heroes too) extracted from newspaper reports of court cases and inquests between 1865-1900" (archived copy).
- Capital punishment in the 18th & 19th centuries - many listings and articles.
Court Records
The Court of Chivalry 1634-1640 - "The aim of the site is to make available to scholars, researchers, local historians and genealogists the records of the Court of Chivalry during its heyday between 1634 and 1640. Over this period the court dealt with well over a thousand cases of which it has been possible to recover details of 738. These cover a wide variety of topics relating to the social, political and cultural history of the period, from ship money and the Bishops' Wars to pew disputes and duelling, from heralds visitations and grants of arms to brawls in the street and quarrels at race meetings."
- A modern map of the United Kingdom.
- Travellers Tales - transcriptions of a number of books describing early travels in Britain, from Vision of Britain.
- The U.K. Database of Historic Parks and Gardens provided by Landscapes & Gardens at the University of York.
- The complete texts of Defoe's Tour of Great Britain (1778), Thompson's Tour of England and Scotland (1785) and Stebbing's Tour of the west of England. Made available by The Center for Retrospective Digitization, Göttingen State and University Library.
- Geograph British Isles - "aims to collect a geographically representative photograph for every square kilometre of the British Isles".
- Historical Aerial Photography - "an unsurpassed collection of information about old aerial photographs of the UK, from the 40's to the 90's..."
- Britain From Above - "the unique Aerofilms collection of aerial photographs from 1919-1953".
- Round the Coast scanned photographs from "An album of pictures from photographs of the chief seaside places of interest in Great Britain and Ireland" (George Newnes Ltd., 1895)" provided by by Rosemary and Stan Rodliffe.
Directories
- UK & Ireland - Directories - links and information.
Dwellings
- The DiCamillo Companion to British and Irish County Houses - information on present and demolished country houses throughout UK and Ireland, including history, information about owners, etc.
Emigration and Immigration
- UK & Ireland - Emigration and Immigration - links and information.
Gazetteers
- UK & Ireland - Gazetteers - links and information.
Handwriting
- UK & Ireland - Handwriting - links and information.
Heraldry
- The College of Arms website. "The College of Arms is the official repository of the coats of arms and pedigrees of English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Commonwealth families and their descendants. Its records also include official copies of the records of Ulster King of Arms the originals of which remain in Dublin." The College publishes a quarterly online newsletter.
- Additional information is provided by the Society of Genealogists' Information Leaflet: "The right to Arms".
- The College of Arms, London, by Colin Meays.
- The College of Arms Foundation, Inc. - "The Foundation ... promotes knowledge of, and interest in, English heraldry in the United States."
- The White Lion Society - A Society of Friends of Her Majesty's College of Arms.
- Heraldica, Franois Velde's Heraldry Site, has some very interesting material on British Heraldry.
- "Pssst! Want to Buy Your Family's Coat of Arms?" by Dick Eastman exposes the tricksters who operate in shopping malls and on the internet.
- Heraldry - from the Notes on Medieval English Genealogy website.
- A Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry - transcription of the book by James Parker (1894).
- Pimbley's Dictionary of Heraldry - from the Heraldry on the Internet website.
- How to Read a Coat of Arms - from the Cheshire Heraldry website.
- Brian Timms' Heraldry website, incorporating his original Studies in Heraldry website.
- The Heraldry Society website.
- The Great Britain Historical Geography Information Service (GBHGIS) provides a mass of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps.
- A Vision of Britain Through Time, in the GBHGIS, provides maps and statistical information derived from census reports covering the period 1801-2001, searchable by place name or post code.
- The Association of British Counties (A.B.C.) "is a society dedicated to promoting awareness of the continuing existence of the 86 traditional Counties of Britain".
- British Counties, Parishes, etc. for Genealogists
Land and Property
- For English and Welsh records see PRO Leaflet: Tithe Records in the National Archives. Scottish records are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
- Legal Terms in Land Records is a useful glossary of obscure terms which occur in property deeds.
- Robin Alston's Country House Database (archived copy) "represents a first attempt at listing country houses in the British Isles from the late medieval period to ca. 1850, together with an index to all the families so far traced as having occupied them".
- Estate Records held by Kings College, Cambridge.
- Disused Railway Stations website - a large and growing set of photographs of closed stations, with brief details of each station and a map showing its location.
- The Trace My House website provides extensive information and guidance for anyone wishing to investigate the history of a house and the people who lived in it.
- TNA's Looking for records of a house - "Records relating to the history of houses are kept in a variety of archives. This guide will help you to find out where the information you are looking for might be, and how to go about finding it."
Language and Languages
- Alison U. Ring has provided some valuable and very readable notes on Latin in Parish Registers.
- Beginner's Latin - from The National Archives.
- Kevin Crawley of the University of Notre Dame Archives has provided a valuable Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid.
- Dave Wilton's A (Very) Brief History of the English Language provides an excellent introduction to this fascinating subject, while the Wikipedia History of the English Language page provides links to more detailed resources.
- Deciphering Old Handwriting - from a course taught by Sabina J. Murray.
- How To Read A 200-Year-Old Document and Other FAQs from Archiving Early America provides some useful tips about the "long s" and other common problems.
Manors
- The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts: Manorial Documents Register: lists the whereabouts of manorial documents; only those relating to Wales, the three Yorkshire Ridings, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are currently online.
- Manors - Further Research - from the National Archives.
- Manorial Records in the National Archives - from the National Archives.
- Manorial documents - a general introduction from the Medieval English genealogy web-site.
- Detailed guide to Estate Records, from the Earls Colne web-site.
- UK & Ireland - Maps - links and information.
Medical Records
- UK & Ireland - Medical Records - links and information.
Merchant Marine
- UK & Ireland - Merchant Marine - links and information.
Military History
- UK & Ireland - Military History - links and information.
Military Records
- UK & Ireland - Military Records - links and information.
Names, Geographical
- Finding Modern Locations. How to find a present day house, street or place in the U.K. (or to find only the Post Code).
- UK Placename Finder - "information on the names of more than 160,000 UK places".
- What's in a Named Place? The meanings of prefixes and suffixes in Britain's place names. (From the Countrylovers' Website.)
Names, Personal
- UK & Ireland - Names, Personal - links and information.
Newspapers
- UK & Ireland - Newspapers - links and information.
Nobility
- Darryl Lundy provides a large searchable collection of information on European Royal families and the British Peerage.
- Debrett's Essential Guide to the Peerage
Occupations
- UK & Ireland - Occupations - links and information.
Periodicals
- UK & Ireland - Periodicals - links and information.
Politics and Government
- Links to Local Government Websites provided by UK250.
- List of Open Central Government Websites provided by the Cabinet Office.
- Government Publications
- The Developing Franchise - British Isles, by Timothy Owston.
- Transcripts of Various Acts of Parliament of Interest to the Genealogist - a large collection, provided by Guy Etchells.
Poor Houses, Poor Law etc.
- Peter Higginbotham's comprehensive The Workhouse website provides a wealth of information about Workhouses, the Poor Law and related issues.
Population
- Statistics on the population of the British Isles.
- Histpop, the online historical population reports website, in its census section provides access to all the published population reports for Britain and Ireland from 1801 - 1937. The site has a huge amount of statistical information both at a county level and at a parish or district level. There is no personal information on the site.
Postal and Shipping Guides
Information on the Mulready envelope which was used just before the introduction of the famous "Penny Black" postage stamp. (Provided by Mulready's Family Restaurant).
Probate Records
- For English and Welsh records see TNA Leaflet: Will and Probate Records. Scottish testamentary records are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
- Copies of wills proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury can be obtained for a fee the National Archives via their Wills 1384-1858 page.
- Official search facility for finding the will of a soldier who died while serving in the British armed forces between 1850 and 1986.
Religion and Religious Life
Preamble to the Protestation (1641), transcribed by J.M. Joliffe.
Schools
- MissingAncestors.com (archived copy) - contains information on staff and students at Industrial/Reformatory Schools & the like during the 19th and early 20th century.
- Anguline Research Archives produce CDs of a number of major public school registers.
- UK & Ireland - Societies - links and information.
Taxation
- For English and Welsh records see PRO Leaflet: Taxation Records before 1660. Scottish tax records are held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.
- An indication of the taxes in force in 1823 can be found in Abstract of the Principal Tax Acts taken from the "History, Directory & Gazetteer, of the County of York, by Edward Baines (1823). This publication also gives details about the law relating to rent payable.
- Taxes in force in 1837 from "History, Gazetteer, and Directory, of the West-Riding of Yorkshire, with the City of York and Port of Hull." by William White (1837). Transcribed by Susan Johnson.
- Hearth Tax Online - a web site dedicated to providing data and analysis of the records of the hearth tax which was introduced in England and Wales by the government of Charles II in 1662