Volunteers bring to life the world of the Victorian poor

Anti-poor law poster. Cat. ref: HO44 27 part 2 (1)

11 November 2008

Volunteers around England and Wales are embarking on an exciting project to unearth the often sad and gruesome world of the Victorian poor.

Led by The National Archives, the 'Living the Poor Life' project will involve more than 200 local and family historians in cataloguing memos, letters and reports held within the records of 22 Poor Law Unions.

Over the next 18 months the volunteers will catalogue more than 100,000 pages of documents dating from the mid-1830s to around 1850.

From the running of the workhouses, to tales of family breakdown, greed and corruption, these records provide a detailed snapshot of a key period in Britain´s history.

The scanned records will be eventually be made available on The National Archives' website. Local and family historians will be able to search by name, place, date and event, providing a level of detail not found in any other records from this period.

'While the 19th century saw a huge growth in Britain's economy and industrial capacity, not everyone shared the material benefits,' says Dr Paul Carter, Principal Modern Records Specialist at The National Archives.

'These are the kind of records that will help researchers, whether a family historian or an academic, answer the question of what life was like for these people.'

The National Archives is funding the current work and is seeking additional funding to extend the project through to records from the early 1870s.

London Historical Records To Go Online

The London Metropolitan Archive and Guildhall Library Manuscripts date from the early 16th Century to 2006.

Owned by the City of London, they include parish records, school records, electoral registers, lists of workhouse labourers and wills

The first records are expected to be launched in early 2009.

Those records will include parish records from more than 10,000 Greater London parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials, dating from the 1530s to the 20th Century.

London school admissions from 843 schools, dating from the early Victorian times to 1911, will also be made available initially.

It is hoped the records will help people trying to trace the roots of ancestors who lived in or passed through London at some point in time.

Source: BBC News

New parish burial records

Findmypast.com has added to its extensive City Of London Burial Index records, which go back to 1742.

These parish records are crucial for any family historian as they predate the commencement of civil registration in 1837 - which proves a seemingly insurmountable brick wall for many.

The newly added parish of St George, Southwark - nowadays St George's Cathedral - consists of 25,804 records.

Search the City of London Burial Index now.

New Quaker Records

The Quakers have played an important role in making the world a sweeter and better place.

The famous confectioners John Cadbury and Joseph Rowntree are easy to find and have fed both the nations sweet tooth and many a dentist.

The Quakers have been a major force in social change, Elizabeth Fry the prison reformer and Cadbury setting up the Bournville village as a temperance area and providing good housing for the factory workers.

The records also hold details of literary favourites such as Anna Sewell who wrote Black Beauty.

This data set now adds to the already substantial resource of non-conformist records on the BMD Registers site which includes Methodists, Wesleyans, Baptists, Independents, Protestant Dissenters, Congregationalist, Presbyterians and Unitarians. The records also include those from Dr Williams Registry which was used as a way of recording the birth of your child prior to 1837.

With millions of individuals recorded it could prove to be the hiding place of that tricky ancestor you’ve been trying to locate. The records are free to search so you have nothing to loose.

www.BMDRegisters.co.uk

www.TheGenealogist.co.uk

In association with The National Archives

U.K. Historical Occupational Trade Directories Now Online

via Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter by Dick Eastman on 6/18/08

The following announcement was written by Familyrelatives.com:

Familyrelatives.com is pleased to announce the first of several new and important records to be put online - part of a program to add more than 10 million new records.

Starting with the most recent records to go online are the Pigot's Trade directories, these are a unique collection and cover 27 counties and provide invaluable information for the 1830's going back as far as the time of William IV.

The Pigot's Directories currently cover the period from 1830 to 1839 before the official Civil Registration began and are a valuable source of additional information when researching your ancestors. All major professions, nobility, gentry, clergy, trades and occupations including taverns and public houses and much more are listed. There are even timetables of the coaches and carriers that served a town.

Parishes are listed for each area with useful information including the number of inhabitants, a geographical description and the main trades and industries of the area or town.

Search for those long forgotten trades from Cowkeepers to Woolstaplers.
The collection is fully searchable and can be searched by name or occupation or each county may be easily browsed by page. This is a useful resource for anyone wanting to know more about the area where their ancestors lived and worked and is available to members with a subscription. (See table for counties available).

The records databases are included in the annual Subscription package of £37.50.

For a full list of records online please visit www.familyrelatives.com.

A Graphical Search Engine: SearchMe.com

via Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter by Dick Eastman on 6/17/08

SearchMe.com is a new search engine that is available as a public beta test. It shows a lot of promise. SearchMe's graphical display of web pages is quite similar to Macintosh and iPod displays: you can "flip" through the pages. Finding relevant web pages usually is faster in SeachMe.com that in using traditional search engines such as Google or Yahoo. This is especially true when the pages have lots of graphics or contain sophisticated visual layouts. The results are difficult to describe in words but you will understand within seconds after making your first search.

Enter a search term into the search box and then use the scroll bar at the bottom to view the found pages.

Try it. It's free. It is also in beta so you might stumble over a bug or two: http://www.SearchMe.com.

Findmypast live webchat

Findmypast.com's experts will be on hand to answer your family history questions via a live webchat at 7pm on 18 June.

Whether you're trying to trace the death of an elusive great uncle, want to know more about parish records, or need help overcoming that proverbial 'brick wall' in your research, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for.

Elaine Collins is former editor of Ancestors magazine and Radio5 Live's regular genealogy presenter , whilst Steve Rigden, our other expert, has over twenty years' experience as a professional genealogist, and is Head of Research at findmypast.com.

Whether you're a complete beginner or a seasoned genealogist, Steve and Elaine are here to answer your questions and pass on some top tips.

To take part, either send us your question(s) now or sit and watch when we go live at 7pm on 18 June. To submit a question or take part in the event, please visit the webchat site.

We'll do our best to answer as many questions as we can.