Useful Websites For Family History

These websites are just a small selection of the many sites currently available worldwide. They have been selected as being particularly useful to family historians visiting the Family Record Centre and many are genealogy portal sites which lead to many more helpful sources.

Essential Genealogy Sites :-

www.genuki.org.uk - The premier UK genealogical web site. Covers every county in the UK with online trade directories, gazetteers, information on places, libraries, archives, censuses and much, much more.

www.cyndislist.com - US based site covering the whole world. Has an enormously useful A-Z subject list with over 240,000 links to every possible genealogical topic.

Birth, Marriages & Deaths :-

www.direct.gov.uk - UK Government web archive showing a list of other public records

www.gro.gov.uk - from the General Register Office (GRO), including birth, marriage, civil partnership, death, adoption and commemorative certificates.

www.ukbmd.org.uk - Links to all well known web sites, including Civil Registration, that offer indexes and information about UK births, marriages and deaths

www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk - GRO Scotland's database of births, marriages, deaths and census.

www.familysearch.org - The LDS genealogy sites of over 400 million names including the International Genealogical Index (IGI)

www.bdm.nsw.gov.au - Australian (NSW) births (to 1905), marriages and deaths (to 1945).

www.findmypast.co.uk - A chargeable service. View digitised images of GRO indexes 1837 - 2006

Wills & Census :-

www.1901censusonline.com- 1901 census for England and Wales.

www.freecen.org.uk - A growing voluntary project to put all UK censuses online.

www.ancestry.co.uk - A chargeable service for census and other genealogical records.

www.census-online.com/links/England - A variety of transcriptions and indexes

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk - all PCC Wills 1384-1858

www.scottishdocuments.com - 520,000 Scottish documents wills 1500-1901

Emigration and Immigration :-

www.ellisisland.org - Passengers to US 1892-1924. Not all were emigrants; many were just visitors or returning from a visit to the UK.

www.jubilation.uwaterloo.ca - Emigration information and lists of ships sailing to Canada

Passenger Lists :-

www.immigrantships.net - Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild.

www.blaxland.com/ozships - Australian arrivals and departures 1788-1968

www.hotkey.net.au/~jwilliams4/ships.htm - Hundreds more shipping lists.

Military & Maritime :-

www.cwgc.org - Commonwealth War Graves Commission site includes Debt of Honour Register - details of those who died during both World Wars. Includes some civilian deaths.

Other useful sites :-

www.look4them.org.uk - A website of 7 official UK organisations who can help you to find missing persons.

www.hiddenlives.org.uk - Website that looks into late Victorian and early 20th Century children in care.

www.oldbaileyonline.org - 197,745 criminal trials 1674-1913

www.historicaldirectories.org - Trade Directories - all can be searched at once

www.gazettes-online.co.uk - London, Belfast and Edinburgh Gazettes

www.jgsgb.org.uk - The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain

www.old-maps.co.uk - A chargeable website of old maps of Great Britain including The Wirral.

www.maps.cheshire.gov.uk - Plenty of old maps to look at from tithe maps to early 20th Century Ordnance Survey maps .

www.workhouses.org.uk - Extensive information about workhouses.