Tuesday, 17 April 2012

The Genealogist adds Dorset parish records

Some recent additions to The Genealogist website at www.thegenealogist.co.uk:

Books (Parish Records)
  • Tarrant Hinton, Dorset 1545-1812
  • Beer Hackett, Dorset 1549-1812
  • Lydlinch, Dorset 1559-1812

Books (Titanic)
  • The Deathless Story of the Titanic
  • The Sinking of the Titanic

Transcripts
  • Titanic Passengers and Crew List
  • Worcestershire Poll Book Transcripts (1835-1865)

Visitation Records
  • Visitations of England and Wales; Volumes 1 to 21 (1893-1921)

Chris


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

National Library of Scotland blog

The National Library of Scotland has launched a new family history blog at http://blogs.nls.uk/familyhistory/ which will be used by the institution to highlight materials within its collections that people might not be aware of which can be of potential assistance to ancestral research.

(With thanks to Hazel Stewart at the NLS)

Chris

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

Talk on Shorts Brothers in Belfast

News from PRONI (www.proni.gov.uk) of a forthcoming talk in Belfast:

Ian Montgomery will be delivering the next in the PRONI @ Linen Hall Library lecture series entitled Pioneers of the Skies: an introduction to the Short Brothers photographic archive in PRONI. The presentation will take place at 1pm on 25 April 2012 in the Performance Area at the Linen Hall Library.

Everyone is welcome.

(With thanks to Gavin McMahon)

Chris

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

Monday, 16 April 2012

National Library of Scotland material on Internet Archive

For some time the National Library of Scotland (www.nls.uk) has been digitising material in partnership with the Internet Archive (www.archive.org), most notably the Post Office directories project. What I had not twigged was just how much additional material the library has placed online through the partnership.

The library has a dedicated page on the site at http://archive.org/details/nationallibraryofscotland. On this you will find the following collections, including Harts Army Lists, RAF lists, trade directories and more:

Harts Army List
201 Harts Army List items

Music at the NLS
311 books from the Music collection at the National Library of Scotland

National Library of Scotland - Air Force Lists
59 items

National Library of Scotland, Architecture
1 book on Architecture

Navy Lists, National Library of Scotland
122 Navy Lists

RL Stevenson books from the NLS
9 books by Robert Louis Stevenson

Scottish Directories
812 editions from across Scotland (NB: The NLS website currently provides access to 694 of these)

Scottish Family History
375 books contributed by National Library of Scotland

Stirling Council Library and Archives Service
6 items from Stirling Council, Scotland Directories

The Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Council
34 books from The Mitchell Library, Glasgow City Council.

Should keep a few of you busy!

Chris

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

Mercantile Naval List background

Eddie Connolly has written an interesting piece on his blog explaining the background to the Mercantile Naval List first established in 1849, which published details of all masters and mates who had obtained a certificate of competency. The blog post is available at http://anextractofreflection.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/mercantile-navy-list.html.

Eddie has also made a transcript of such details from the 1849 list, available at his website at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~econnolly/mnlextracts/index.html.

Chris

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

Irish Genealogy Project Archives search facilities

The Irish Genealogy Project Archives (www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/index.htm) has created two new search facilities to allow you to search across all of its collections by county. One search box allows you to search for everything bar monumental inscriptions, the other the monumental inscriptions. The search boxes are available directly at www.igp-web.com/IGPArchives/search.htm.

(With thanks to Claire Santry's blog)

Chris

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

Sunday, 15 April 2012

20 Spitfires to be returned from Burma

Apologies if this only interests the lads, but twenty Spitfires, buried in Burma during the Second World War, are to be returned to Britain. They were buried in near perfect condition to prevent the Japanese getting their hands on them. An amazing story, which you can read at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9203822/Spitfires-buried-in-Burma-during-war-to-be-returned-to-UK.html.

I'm a huge fan of the plane, and have met many who sat in their cockpits during the Battle of Britain - I know it's not really a genealogy story, but it's about Spitfires, and that's nearly as important!

Now to get them all in working order and taking off at an air show together - that's what I would call an event!

(With thanks to Geoff Sullivan's RT of a Twitter post by @James1940)

Chris

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

Friday, 13 April 2012

New Norfolk heraldry volume published

There's a new volume available from the Norfolk Heraldry Society depicting heraldry identified in churches within both Heacham and Rising Deanery. For more information visit http://heraldryinnorfolk.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/heacham-rising-deanery/

Chris

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

Titanic online chats with The National Archives

The National Archives is hosting three mid-afternoon online chat sessions next week for those with interests in the Titanic. For more information see www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/699.htm.

Chris

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

More English parish records on FindmyPast

More parish records have been released by FindmyPast (www.findmypast.co.uk), as well as a new database tool:

OVER HALF A MILLION PARISH RECORDS PUBLISHED ONLINE FOR THE FIRST TIME BY FINDMYPAST.CO.UK, PLUS A HANDY NEW TOOL
  • Yorkshire, Dorset and London records back to 1560 now available online at findmypast.co.uk
  • New projects launched with North West Kent Family History Society and Northamptonshire Family History Society
  • New browse function for parish record images now available

Leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has today published online transcripts of 574,800 English parish records, and at the same time made it easier to research parish records by adding a browse facility .

Users of the website will now notice the addition of a previous and a next button on their screens when viewing a parish record image, enabling them to browse through the registers page by page.

Ian Tester, Product Manager at findmypast.co.uk said: “Adding previous and next page buttons to the parish record screens is an example of a really simple piece of development that will transform how you search for your ancestors in our burgeoning parish record collection. Now you can leaf through the pages of the registers, just as if you were handling the original volume in a record office. You’ll be amazed at the new avenues this will open up in your research.”

The new parish record transcripts now available on the site include:

  • 96,545 Northamptonshire marriage records 1538-1975
  • 431,683 Northamptonshire burial records 1527 to 2006

This significant new record collection at findmypast.co.uk covers a multitude of parishes, including Towcester, Harpole, Peterborough St John, Northampton All Saints and Oundle and is a new project with Northamptonshire Family History Society in association with the Federation of Family History Societies.

  • 16,713 Kent baptisms from the parishes of Crayford, Greenwich and Darenth covering 1813 to 1856
  • 1,454 Kent marriage records from Greenwich spanning the years 1791 to 1842


This record launch marks the start of a new project between findmypast.co.uk and North West Kent Family History Society.
  • 7,169 Dorset baptism records from the parishes of Whitchurch Canonicorum, Lydlinch, Morden, Portesham, Frampton, Dorchester St Peter and Hamoon spanning 1559 to 1894
  • 704 Dorset marriages from Symondsbury and Lydlinch, 1560 to 1812
  • 6,346 Dorset burial records from Durweston, Loders, Lydlinch, Spetisbury, Milton Abbas, Dorchester Holy Trinity, Warmwell and Morden, 1641 to 1812

These records are published online at findmypast.co.uk in association with Dorset Family History Society.
  • 86,806 Yorkshire baptism records from Oughtibridge, Norton Lees, Ecclesfield, Ecclesal, Netherthorpe, Attercliffe, Sheffield and St Pauls spanning 1599 to 1996

These records are published in association with Sheffield & District Family History Society.

In addition findmypast.co.uk has added more baptisms to its Docklands record collection as follows:
  • St Dunstan Stepney 1680-1689 10,027 entries
  • St Matthew’s 1790-1799 4,159 entries

All the new records can be searched for free within the Life Events section of the website, along with the 42 million other parish records currently available on the site. The transcripts can be viewed either by purchasing PayAsYouGo credits or with a Full subscription to findmypast.co.uk.

(With thanks to Debra Chatfield)

Chris


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