News & Articles 2022

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?

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"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.