Parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials are one of the main staples of the family historian. Anyone tracing their family tree back further than civil registration and the census in England will almost certainly look at these sources. Indeed, many of you will have spent hours scrolling through microfilms of registers in the pursuit Read More
This month Ancestry has launched 73 new and updated AncestryDNA® communities for the UK, as a part of a global release of over 225 new regions. This is an exciting next step in the journey we are taking with our customers, as we continue to discover more about how our DNA can add to our knowledge Read More
With the launch of the Wiltshire Wills collection, Claire Skinner from Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre explores the historical significance of wills. The probate collection of the Diocese of Sarum alias Salisbury (more popularly known as the Wiltshire Wills collection) is a collection of over 500,000 images of wills and related records from the whole Read More
Graham Thompson, Archives Assistant at the Royal Museums Greenwich, talks about the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital and the role it played in London during the 1800-1900s. The Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital at Greenwich was the main clinical site of the Seamen’s Hospital Society (now Seafarer’s Hospital Society) and a major part of its patient records came to Read More
From baby-faced thieves to seasoned swindlers, Fife criminals were captured in more ways than one in the Fife Criminal Registers. The new collection, spanning from 1910-1931 collection, includes 900 records and more than a thousand historic images of criminals convicted in Fireshire. Men, women and children charged with criminal offences were recorded in registers, providing Read More
Our latest Irish collection, Ireland, Poor Law Union Removals From England, 1859-1860, gives us a window in to what life was like as an Irish pauper living in the UK in the late 1850’s. Irish paupers were often looked upon negatively, as an unwanted expense on the local communities in which they resided across England, Read More
The Names of Witches in Scotland, 1658 collection, digitised from original records held by the Wellcome Library, holds the names of both women and men who were accused of witchcraft during a period of Scottish history in which persecution of supposed witches was rife. The passing of the Scottish Witchcraft Act in 1563 made witchcraft, Read More
Spanning more than 350 years, Ancestry’s new UK Medical Registers document the careers of some of the most notable names in British medical history, including the man who discovered Penicillin, Britain’s first recognised female doctor and even a pair of suspected serial killers from the world of medicine. The six new collections, digitised from original Read More
Consider yourself a bit of a history buff? Maybe you just love a good story that you can’t put down? Then we have a feeling you’ll enjoy our brand new podcast series, It’s About Time. And who better to help tell these true tales from the past than UK treasure and chief-storyteller, Sir Tony Robinson. Read More