TNA user group update

Thanks to Else Churchill for flagging up the minutes of the recent TNA user group at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/get-involved/user-advisory-group.htm

Some highlights on the digitisation front (see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/uag06031207c-digitisation-update.pdf for full details):

Military

Chelsea pension and militia records are online, with more military material to come though, including Royal Hospital Chelsea's Irish equivalent, Royal Hospital Kilmainham (British and Irish soldiers could be discharged to pension at either hospital, irrespective of original nationality - discharged where they ended up basically!):

• WO 119 Royal Hospital, Kilmainham: Pensioners' Discharge Documents (Certificates of Service) 1757-1849  [though not records from WO 118, Kilmainham pension admission books]
• WO 121 Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners 1760-1887
• WO 122 Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners, Foreigners' Regiments 1816-1817
• WO 128 War Office: Imperial Yeomanry, Soldiers' Documents, South African War 1899-1902
• WO 131 Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Documents of Soldiers Awarded Deferred Pensions 1838-1896

The above has all been digitised by FindmyPast, so should be being processed, indexed etc now.


Maritime BMDs

FindmyPast has digitised the following maritime BMD registers:

• ADM 80/4-12 (Registers of dead men's wages)
• ADM 183/114-120, ADM 184/43-54 (Various registers of marriages, births and deaths, children's BMD records etc)
• ADM 242/1-15 (Naval officers' deaths, war graves, ships lost etc)
• BT 153/1-22 (Registers of wages and effects of deceased seamen)
• BT 156/1-4 (monthly lists deaths of seamen)
• BT 157/1-9 (Registers of seamen's deaths, classified by cause 1882-1888)
• BT 334/1-117 (Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea)
• CO 386/170/172 (Registers of births and deaths of emigrants at sea)
• CUST 67/74 (Register of Deaths and Births at Sea, Falmouth)

I should add the descriptions in brackets are not complete, just a quick explanation I've whipped up from the references in the document to give an idea of what's coming! The TNA documents states they went live on Feb 29th - they didn't, but they will be out next month.


Crime, Courts and Convicts  

Lots of stuff coming in September of this year:

ADM 6/418, 420-422 | CRIM 9 | HO 7 | HO 8 | HO 13 | HO 17 | HO 18 | HO 19 | HO 23 | HO 24 | HO 47 | HO 77 | HO 130 | HO 140 | MEPO 6 | PCOM 2 | PCOM 3 | PCOM 5 | T 38/310-338).


War Diaries: First World War

The project's too big to deliver in time for November 2014 - so they're restricting it to divisional records from France and Flanders only, still approximately half of the records. They also cannot afford to transcribe the records now, but are exploring possible crowd-sourcing options to deliver on that.

Various other records sets are also discussed, including Household Cavalry papers, Royal marines officers' records, gallantry at sea awards and more - full details in the minutes. There is also a useful cataloguing update for other collections at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/uag06031207b-cataloguing-update.pdf and a reserve list for those under consideration at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/uag06031207b-cataloguing-update-reserve.pdf.

(With thanks to Else and TNA)

Chris

British GENES on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BritishGENES and Twitter @chrismpaton

Scotland's Greatest Story research service www.ScotlandsGreatestStory.co.uk and www.facebook.com/ScottishGenealogyResearch