Alan E. Mann, AG

mngs@alanmann.com Accredited Genealogist

www.alanmann.com/articles Wednesday, 27 July 2005, 9:45 am

English research on the Internet

English research has changed dramatically since the turn of the century. The Internet now plays a role in nearly every aspect of British research. While useful in the areas of research coordination, finding aids, & published genealogy, the web may also give access to a compiled genealogy, extracted or transcribed records, indexes, or local help. Even if you need to consult records not available electronically, a web page or an archive email address can help you get more information about the records and how you can access them. Many libraries offer online searchable catalogs. A lookup service could provide a contact that would actually look at the record and email you the results. A "how to" web page could describe the records and help you determine whether the record will meet your research goal.

The British government web site (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) offers an ever-expanding collection of documents you can view in your home (NOTE: click on categories at top rather than picking from “pull-down” list to get description/explanation of choices). Volunteer indexing is helping non-profit organizations offer products and services that would cost millions of dollars to offer commercially. Online services help you search the IGI by parish, give new search options, teach you more about records and research methodology, and can bring you previously impossible success through the Internet. And you can take advantage of these improvements--even if you don't have a computer.

There are several projects and fee-based web sites coming available for England. I’m not sure yet which will be enduring. One good example is www.thegenealogist.co.uk.

A more thorough treatment of English web sites with detailed examples can be found on my website at www.alanmann.com/England.htm. This webpage explains eight different types of websites and gives examples of each category in an outline form. It is far easier to refer you to that site than to try to list all the URLs (web addresses) here.

An extensive collection of many thousands of British websites arranged in FHLC-like categories is used at the Family History Library. The Family History Library’s Information Services Team maintains this list of websites for use on the Library’s computers, and has made this list available in the library to export for personal use. The self-extracting zip file and the instructions for importing are available in the library. For MNGS members, I have brought a copy of this file and will leave it with the society officers.

The most important site for British research, however, remains GENUKI (GENealogy of the United Kingdom and Ireland) at www.genuki.org.uk/big/. This umbrella site is run by volunteers and attempts to link anything and everything that can help with British Genealogy into one categorized list. The site is patterned after the Family History Library Catalog, with information first organized according to the level of jurisdiction that was responsible for that record. For example, birth records were kept by the national government, so they are described in the topic Civil Registration under the country level (England). Wills were mostly kept by the counties, so they are described in the topic Probate Records at the county level. Parish registers, on the other hand, were kept by the individual parishes and are therefore described in the topic Church Records under the name of the individual parish under the county in which that parish is located.

One small inconsistency is that from the first selection page, the geographical divisions are listed for your selection. Thus, from the first page, you select from a list of countries (England, Wales, Scotland, etc.). From the England page, you select from a list of counties. Once you get to the county page, however, the system changes. Now, you must click on a hidden link near the top of the page that says “Towns and parishes.” That will then list the parishes for you to select the desired parish.

Any discussion of British records online would be lacking without mention of Ancestry.com. I caution you that this collection has a few flaws, namely:

1. It costs money—it’s not free

2. Many of the records listed are readily available elsewhere, for free—particularly those that are listed as parish records. Most of these have already been extracted and are available in the IGI (and can be separated from other IGI entries using Hugh Wallis’ site, see below).

Having pointed this out, however, I must say that even when data may be available elsewhere at no charge, by bringing several things together in one index, the time saved may be worth the cost. Ancestry also has an excellent collection of English census records that aren’t available elsewhere, or may cost more money elsewhere. If you are going to be doing many searches in British 1901 census records, the cost of Ancestry would be less than that of the British government 1901 census site. You can view many of the things available in the Ancestry UK collection by going to www.ancestry.com/search/locality/dbpage.aspx?tp=3257&p=3251.

An excellent help for British research is Hugh Wallis’ IGI Batch number page. The purpose of this page is to allow you to search the millions of extracted parish register entries from the British Isles by parish. Normally, IGI searches are by county. Using this web site, you can limit the search to a particular batch. Since 99% of English and Welsh batches are associated with a parish, it is a good substitute for a parish search capability. Check this out at freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers.htm. Remember, though, that this site works best IF you know a parish that you want to search.

Don’t miss the Lookup Exchange (www.lookupcentral.f9.co.uk/volunteers.html) and ARCHON (www.archon.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/).

Most of this session will focus on examples which you can view at www.alanmann.com/England.htm.

©Copyright 1995-2005 by Alan E. Mann, AG. All rights reserved. Written permission to reproduce all or part of this syllabus material in any format, including photocopying, data retrieval, or the Internet, must be secured in advance from the copyright holder.