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SOURCES OF REFERENCE
THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES
UNITED KINGDOM
We are exceptionally please to advise our members and site visitors that ‘The National Archives’ [UK] has given us permission to publish some of their articles that we feel you may find of interest.
We will be giving you items from their website and newsletters but also we sincerely recommend that you visit their website and apply to receive their regular electronic newsletter. These are extremely interesting vehicles for family history information.
The National Archives is the official archive for England, Wales and the central UK government, containing 900 years of history from Domesday Book to the present, with records ranging from parchment and paper scrolls through to recently created digital files and archived websites.
Increasingly, these records are being put online, making them universally accessible.
The vision of The National Archives is to:
You can use their online services to search their database and download certain documents. If unable to find a document online, try to physically visit the original collection at The National Archives in Kew, West London.
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JUNE 2008
THIS IS TRULY A GREAT VISIT TO MAKE
This year sees the 40th anniversary of a momentous year in history. 1968 was the year of revolution, including student protests, riots and miniskirts. Our fascinating provides a snapshot of a world in turmoil.
FIND YOUR RELATIVE WHO SAILED AWAY BEFRORE 1960
You can now go to Ancestorsonboard.com for the names of people leaving ports in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1890 to 1960.
You'll find over 24 million people travelling to Australasia, India, South Africa and North America.
Why don't you search the passenger lists now?
SHIPS LISTS
Ancestorsonboard.com have added the 1940 to 1949 decade to the UK Outbound Passenger Lists. Passengers in this decade included 'Home Children' to Australia and war brides to North America.
Records now include 20 million names within 137,000 passenger lists spanning 1890 to 1949.
Click here to start your instant search
ROYAL NAVY WILLS
You can now search and download around 35,000 Royal Navy wills. The wills cover men who joined the Royal Navy between 1786 and 1882.
Search by name, rating, ship, date of will or keyword - JUST CLICK HERE
ATTENTION! FACE FORWARD!
HOW FAR HAVE YOU TRACED YOUR MILITARY FAMILY TREE?
Don't forget that the indexes are FREE
- you only pay when you download from the National Archives website.
Was your great grandmother in the Wrens?
Over 5,000 women joined The Women's Royal Naval Service during World War One, popularly known as the "Wrens". These records are now available online for the first time from The National Archives.
You can now search and download the records of those who served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) during the First World War. Until now these records have only been available on microfiche in the Reading Room at The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.
The Women's Royal Naval Service was formed to carry out shore-based duties and allow sailors to go to sea. Recruitment posters encouraged women to "Free a man for sea service". The Admiralty aimed to recruit 3,000 women but eventually over 5,000 women joined. Katharine Furse, the former Commandant of the British Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachments, was appointed Director in November 1917. You can see an extract from the draft formation document by clicking on the image on the left.
At first the WRNS (or "Wrens") undertook domestic duties, such as cleaning, cooking and serving meals. Later they carried out a greater variety of roles including wireless telegraphists and electricians. The Officers were not commissioned ("civilians in uniform"). They were based in the United Kingdom, from Portsmouth to the Orkneys, but some units also served in Gibraltar, Malta and Genoa. 23 WRNS died in the First World War.
The WRNS was demobilised on 1 October 1919 and it was re-established in 1938 in the build up to the Second World War. The Women's Royal Naval Service was disbanded finally in 1993 when women were allowed to join the Royal Navy.
We have outlined some points to help you understand more about the first World War WRNS records. Use the links below to jump to the topics you are interested in.
Nonconformist birth, marriage and death records online
14 September 2007
The National Archives´ collection of nonconformist birth, marriage and death records from 1567 goes online today for the first time.
A new partnership project between The National Archives and S&N Genealogy Supplies means that you can now access images of these records online. BMD Registers provides access to the non-parochial and nonconformist registers 1567-1840 held in RG 4 and RG 5.
Add branches to your family tree
Birth, marriage and death records are crucial tools for anyone researching their family history. Before 1837, when civil registration was introduced in England and Wales, church registers provided an important source of information on births, baptisms, marriages and burials.
The National Archives holds 5,000 registers of a huge variety of nonconformist congregations, including Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Protestant Dissenters (known as 'Dr Williams Library') and Independents. There are also registers from a small number of Roman Catholic communities. Basic searching is free of charge, but there is a fee for advanced searching and to download images.
The entries are rich in detail and may include material about up to three generations of a family, helping you to add many branches to your family trees.
Famous names
As well as discovering details about your own family history, you can also find records of famous names from the past, such as Mary Shelley (Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin), Florence Nightingale and William Blake.
More to come
When the project is complete you will also be able to access further miscellaneous birth, marriage and death records from the series RG 6-8, RG 32-36 and BT 158-160. These include records of Quakers, of foreign congregations in England and of clandestine marriages before 1754, as well as miscellaneous foreign returns, and records of life events occurring at sea.