Genealogy Chat

Dear all, I am very much a newby to all of this, and would like to know how you can find out more online about your ancestors before 1851 (the first census), and also from 1901 census onwards. George Barratt

Hi there is an 1841 census too. Depending on which counties you are looking at depends on what is available online. After 1901 you can only really look for BMD's. Try Familysearch for BMD prior 1837

Before 1851 you can check the IGI (International Genealogical Index) on this site www.familysearch.org. Ancestry will be getting the 1841 census online soon. You can google the name of the county you are researching plus parish records and see if they have anything online. After 1901 census you can look at electoral rolls for people of voting age, and also check on Ancestry for birth, marriage, and death indexes in their beta version of the BMD's. Kath. x

Whta is a good internet resource for electoral data please?

Sorry, I should have made it more clear - electoral rolls are not on line. Some people on this site have access to them so you could ask for a look up if you have an address. Also some libraries in the area concerned may have copies. Kath. x

Another handy site to save to your favs is.....address search. http://www*b4u*co*uk/ change * to dots. Gerri .

The 1841 census is on the British Origins site but all counties are not on there yet. And you do have to pay, unfortunately!!

The 1841 census for England and Wales are rumoured to be appearing on Ancestry 'soon'. Be aware that the information that it contains is much more limited than those for later years; for example, it didn't officially detail relationships within a household, and the ages of adults were rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5. You also have the GRO indexes from July 1837 onwards available for free via FreeBMD and Ancestry. Otherwise, your prime resource is going to be parish registers and/or bishop's transcripts, some of which you'll probably find on the IGI. Beyond that it's pretty much pot luck as to whether what you're after is available online; unless you're particularly lucky, you're basically hitting the era for which it's going to be necessary to do your research via record offices. As for post-1901, the next census to be released will be that of 1911, in around five years' time, and there's all sorts of rumours as to what state it's in. Undoubtedly it'll be made available online, though. So you'll be mainly reliant on manually searching the GRO index pages via Ancestry's 'beta' service; the period 1901-1911 is a bit tricky, but after that you start getting mother's maiden surnames given for births, and spouse's surnames for marriages. HTH!

British Origins are good for military attestations as well. They go to Kew and copy them for you for £10 (Cheaper than the train fare) I suggest you take a look at their site and see whats available. (You can search for likely records before buying a 24 hour access) www.historicaldirectories.org is a good site if you've got ancestors listed in street indexes.

Katarzyna advertising!!!!. If you want a look up on 1841 census you are welcome to put a request on my thread. Just check that the county is available by checking out the 1st post on the thread and give me as much info as you can. Kat

You could also have a look at FreeCEN where all the censuses are being transcribed by volunteers BUT Beware ! their records are far from complete but you could just strike lucky !

There comes a point when you have to switch your computer off and go to LDS family history center county records office local history centre The National Archives or other repository. You can look at parish registers, poor law records, quarter-sessions info (for petty crimes - and maybe your relative might be a witness), electoral rolls, street directories, maps, photographs. It's a whole new world again. nell

i actually bought a cd with the 1841 census for my area from a web site called www.parishchest.co.uk