News & Articles

Pinpoint your ancestors homes from the 1891 census on historic maps
4th July 2022

MAJOR NEW RELEASE:

The 1891 census is now linked to historical and modern georeferenced maps by TheGenealogist to make it easier than ever to find where ancestors lived and see the surrounding neighbourhood.

Family and house historians are able to investigate the streets, lanes and wider areas of where their ancestors lived at the time of the 1891 census in this latest release from TheGenealogist. A release that sees the 1891 census linked up to the Map Explorer™ for the first time.

The 1891 Census joins the 1901 census, 1911 census and the 1939 Register that are already connected to the innovative Map Explorer™. This means that researchers are able to identify, with just the click of a button, where their forebears lived and to see the routes their ancestors used to visit shops, local pubs, churches, places of work and parks. With a historical map it is possible to find where the nearest railway station was, important for understanding how our ancestors could travel to other parts of the country to see relatives or visit their hometown. With this release, Diamond subscribers of TheGenealogist can pinpoint ancestors’ properties at the time of the 1891 census and so investigate the neighbourhood from behind their computer screen. Alternatively, users may also access TheGenealogist on their mobile phone to trace their ancestors’ footprints while walking down modern streets.

Most of the London area and other towns and cities can be viewed down to the property level, while other parts of the country will identify down to the parish, road or street.

Viewing a household record from the 1891 census will now show a map, locating your ancestor’s house. Clicking on this map loads the location in Map Explorer™, enabling you to explore the area and see the records of neighbouring properties.

Find out more about our latest release in Nick Thorne's article, where he discovers the home of a famous Victorian chocolatier.

1901 Census now on Map Explorer
10th June 2022

Following on from our recent releases of the 1939 Register and the 1911 Census records linked to contemporary and modern map layers on our Map Explorer™, now the same innovative features have been applied to the 1901 Census of England and Wales. With this new release, viewing a household record from the 1901 census will now show a map, locating your ancestor's house. Clicking on this map loads the location in Map Explorer™, enabling you to explore the area and see the records of neighbouring properties.

With this release Diamond subscribers are able to pinpoint where their ancestors' properties were at the time of the census count and so metaphorically walk the streets from the comfort of their home. Alternatively, users may access TheGenealogist on their mobile phone to physically discover the neighbourhood while on the move.

In our featured article, we investigate the area where Charlie Chaplin and the Eight Lancashire Lads clog-dancing troupe lived, and find shops, public houses, railway stations and other places that they would have known well in their everyday life.

Over 31,000 New Land Tax Records from 1910
6th May 2022

Fascinating English land tax records from the years before the First World War are being released today. Researchers are now able to search 31,394 newly added records of owners and occupiers to discover their ancestors from Merton, Mitcham, Morden and the Wimbledon areas.

Each record is linked to clear scanned pages of the actual IR58 Field books, sourced from The National Archives, and the properties plotted onto large scale contemporary IR121 maps. These maps are digital copies of the ones used at the time by the Valuation Office of the Board of the Inland Revenue to locate each and every parcel of land in the survey taken in between 1910 and 1915.

Find out more about these records in our featured article about how Wimbledon has completely changed.

New Peerage, Gentry, Royalty and Visitations records
14th April 2022

Family historians with an aristocratic ancestor in their family tree will be pleased to hear that we have just significantly boosted the number of records in our Peerage, Gentry and Royalty collection, with thousands of new records now available.

While many researchers believe that their forebears were simply ordinary folk, many of us can find a link to a family that has a published pedigree. While this relationship to the upper levels of society may be as a result of an illegitimate line, nonetheless a link to an ancestor that features in a pedigree is of huge help in tracing back many generations, as much of the work has been done for you by the compilers of the records.

New Land Owner & Occupier Records
27th March 2022

MAJOR NEW RELEASE:

With a release of the records of over 35,000 individuals, family historians will now have the ability to discover valuable particulars about ancestors' homes from the Hillingdon and Harrow areas of London in 1910.

Find out more about these records in our Featured article - Landowner and Occupier records for Harrow reveal schools, homes and other properties.

1939 Register now on Map Explorer
4th March 2022

MAJOR NEW RELEASE: 1939 Register now on Map ExplorerTM with

For the first time, researchers will now be able to see more accurately where their ancestor's house was situated on maps down to house, street or parish level, giving more detail than ever before.

We have also added over 258,000 new records that have now been officially opened. Now you can use our SmartSearch on even more records in the 1939 Register to discover where your ancestors were living.

With our latest update we have added an additional 258,000 individuals

Find out more about these records in our featured article on using the 1939 Register on Map Explorer.

Announcing the largest collection of fully searchable RAF Operations Record Books online
11th February 2022

MAJOR NEW RELEASE:

Today we have released over 4.2 million transcripts for our RAF Operations Record Books (ORBs), fully searchable by Name, Rank, Aircraft, Squadron, and Date plus many other fields, making it simpler to find your air force ancestors.

Watch our short video on the new release and see the records in action :

We uniquely allow you to search the period 1911-1963. With over 11 million records online, this is the largest collection of searchable AIR 27 records making it the best place to find details about your RAF ancestors.

These records include not only the journal-like day to day entries recorded on Form 540 in which you can find RAF personnel mentioned, but also all of the appendices that go along with these documents, giving many statistical details as well as "Secret Orders".

What do our customers think?

One of your best. To be able to follow the day to day activities of individuals down to the hours the planes take off and land is amazing."

"A 2 minute search brought up 2 years of operations logs for my Father, who was a pilot in 123 Squadron stationed in North Africa, India & Burma. They are full of amazing information. Everything from a near miss when a Japanese machine gun bullet 'entered his cockpit', what films they watched & complaints about the food. Just wonderful."

"Just to say a big THANK YOU for giving my family access to records of my late Uncle Douglas Thom's operations in 90 Squadron Bomber Command in 1944. We have been very frustrated that his log books seem to have "disappeared" when his home in mid Wales was cleared. Now at least we have a time-line of his sorties and more information to add to his "not often spoken about" story. I will be passing what you have on him to my cousin, his son Doug, in Canada."

Find out more about these records in our featured article about our search for a famous fighter ace and a Pathfinder from Bomber Command.

New Land Owner & Occupier Records
21st January 2022

We have just added over 72,000 individuals to our Lloyd George Domesday Survery coverage. Researchers will be able to discover useful details about ancestors' homes from these new London areas in 1910: Albany, Belsize, Camden Town, Chalk Farm, Euston, Grays Inn Road, Highgate East, Highgate West, Kilburn, Priory and Adelaide Parish (Hampstead), St Andrew East, St Andrew West, St Giles East, St Giles North, St Giles South, Saffron Hill, Somers Town and Tottenham Court Road.

These property tax records, collected by the Inland Revenue's Valuation offices, are linked to detailed OS maps that will pinpoint down to plot level and can be searched by name or keywords using the Master Search, or by selecting a pin from the map displayed inside TheGenealogist's powerful Map Explorer™. The ability to switch between georeferenced modern and historic maps allows the researcher to see how the neighbourhood in which their ancestors had lived or worked may have altered with the passing of time.

The huge value of these IR58 records, uniquely digitised by TheGenealogist from the originals at The National Archives, is that family history researchers as well as house historians will be able to discover all sorts of information about the past owners and occupiers of the homes, land, outbuildings and property recorded in these areas at the time before Britain was plunged into the First World War.

To find out more about these records, read our latest featured article, From showgirl to Dame of the British Empire.