Useful Information

Upload your family tree

There are a number of websites where you can upload your family tree for free. You can then share this with other members of your family. These websites include:

http://treeview.co.uk/

http://www.myheritage.com/


  • Abbreviations and Websites
  • Recommended Genealogy Blogs
  • Cemeteries
  • Military History

Abbreviations and Websites
Abbreviations:

BMD = Births, Marriages and Deaths

TNA= The National Archives

LMA = London Metropolitan Archives

BL = British Library

SOG = Society of Genealogists

IOR = India Office Records (now situated in the Asian and African Studies - APAC -Reading Room in BL)

LRO/CRO = Local Record Office/County Record Office

GRO = General Register Office


Useful Websites

www.a2a.org.uk         = Access to Archives - many records held in archives across the country.

www.genuki.org.uk     = includes more information on London parishes.

www.freebmd.org.uk = features information on many births, marriages and deaths since 1837

www.ancestry.co.uk        = 1841-1901 censuses; military records; full GRO indexes

Online Parish Clerks        = free parish record details for specific counties

Family Tree Folk              = supplies genealogy gifts, cards and a comprehensive range of magnifiers,
                                                      archival storage and  preservation products.
Recommended Genealogy Blogs

 http://scottishancestry.blogspot.com/ - Scottish Genealogy News and Features

http://newatfamilytreefolk.blogspot.com/ - Genealogy Gazette from Family Tree Folk

www.kithandkinresearch.posterous.com - Genealogy Insights and Dorset History

http://londonrootsresearch.blogspot.com/ - Rosemary Morgan's London & Home Counties Genealogy News

http://paper.li/geniaus/australian-genealogists - Australian Genealogy News

http://property-blog.chestertonhumberts.com/ House Historian's Blog

http://londonhistorians.wordpress.com/ London History News and Features

http://www.georgianlondon.com/ - Life in Georgian London

http://catsmeatshop.blogspot.com/ - Life in Victorian London


Cemeteries

Monumental Inscriptions found in cemeteries can be an excellent way of discovering more about people

in your family tree. They are becoming an increasingly popular resource in genealogy.

USEFUL WEBSITES

NEW! The London Borough of Richmond has uploaded a searchable index of burials (including burials in public

cemeteries):

http://www2.richmond.gov.uk/burials/regenq.asp

Other useful websites:

http://www.londonburials.co.uk/

http://www.tchevalier.com/fallingangels/bckgrnd/cemeteries/

http://www.cemeteryfriends.org.uk/

http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/az/az.asp?searchletter=F&orgid=620

http://www.kensalgreen.co.uk/


Here are some of the cemeteries in which we have done research:

Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington N16 http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~abneypark/abneyy.html

This is a cemetery with excellent records, which are held at Hackney Archives. The cemetery now is overgrown

and many headstones have been destroyed by tree growth (including one belonging to a couple of my

ancestors).

The cemetery received bodies from all over the north London area, and it was very popular with nonconformists.

 It is famous for its monument to William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. www.abney-park.org.uk


New Southgate Cemetery www.newsouthgate.com

Established in 1861, this cemetery is still in use, but older parts are still fairly well kept. The cemetery sent out

burial plot numbers when a burial was registered. It may well be worth searching through family papers to see if

you can find one of these records. Such papers make headstones much easier to find.


Highgate Cemetery http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/home

One of the most famous cemeteries in England; this is home to Karl Marx, George Eliot, Sir Ralph Richardson, and

the famous singer of the 1930s, Leslie 'Hutch' Hutchinson. Some burial records can be found on ancestry, but the

main series of records is held at Camden Local Studies.

The website gives the following information on finding graves:

To find out if someone is buried at Highgate Cemetery you will need to write to the office with their full name and date of death and enclose a cheque or postal order for £10 and we will look through our records. Please include an email address or telephone number so queries can be asked and answered quickly. There are 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves at Highgate Cemetery and all of our records are in their original Victorian paper form so it can take several hours to find a record. Please follow the link below for more details:

 http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/grave-searches

. . . the information that is available on ancestry.co.uk, unfortunately, does not relate to the records held by the Cemetery today. Ancestry.co.uk records show the information that was held by the Dioceses of London and have the number of the person’s position within the burial register, not the grave register. Please follow the link below for information on acquiring the grave number:

 www.highgate-cemetery.org/grave-searches



Also, there is a monument to the Kinematographer, William Friese-Green and his son, Claude Friese-Green (from the BBC 2 series,The Lost World of Friese-Green).

Military History

As you can see from 'Family History Interests' page,my great great grandfather, William Mitchell Jolly, was a Sapper in the Royal Engineers.

I have traced his military career using censuses, BMD certificates, military discharge papers, published histories (contemporary and more recent), muster rolls and pay lists.

From this, I learned how he travelled to Malta, and to unchartered Africa. From the muster rolls, I learned how he travelled alongside camels, and how he built zaribas among mimosa bushes. We have no medals of his in our immediate family; but from records, we discovered what medals he had earned and the battles he survived.

Military History for Clients

Many of our clients are interested in the military careers of their ancestors. Amongst the records we have searched are:
  • World War One medal cards and medal rolls - medal cards online
  • World War One diaries
  • World War One service records (WO363) are now online
  • World War One pension records (WO364) are now online
  • Newspapers (obituaries of World War One soldiers; Medal citations)
  • Military Discharge and Attestation Records - some now online
  • Pension Records
  • Muster Rolls and Pay Lists
  • Published Histories (contemporary reports and modern histories)
  • Published Indexes to Medal Holders (e.g. the Distinguished Conduct Medal)
  • Records of Swiss soldiers who served in the British Swiss Legion
  • Records of German soldiers who served in the British German Legion
  • Records of Irish soldiers who served alongside English, Welsh, and Scottish colleagues throughout the Empire
A full list of all military records available for searching is available at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/militaryhistory/?homelink=main_military

If you, or your ancestor, served in
  • World War Two
  • or in the Armed Forces from 1920
please go to the following website to discover how to obtain access to the required records:

http://www.veterans-uk.info/service_records/service_records.html


Favourite Military History Websites

World War One [1914-1918]

General