Wednesday 28 October 2009

Blog moved

This blog has now moved to my own website. If you'd like to see how it develops, it's now at http://setait.co.uk/?page_id=5

Thursday 30 July 2009

Some record offices to get free access to 1911 census

The National Archives (TNA) has just announced that seven record offices across England and Wales will get free access to the 1911 census for England and Wales.

The record offices are in:
  • Birmingham
  • Exeter
  • Aberystwyth
  • Manchester
  • Norwich
  • Nottingham
  • Newcastle upon Tyne
See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/stories/337.htm?WT.hp=nf-37818 for the full story.

The full 1911 census is available on a pay-per-view basis through http://www.1911census.co.uk/

Still no news about when the 1911 records will be added to the findmypast.com site though.

Sheena

Friday 10 July 2009

Stirling ancestors?

If you've ancestors from Stirling you might find this useful.

The Old Town Cemetery in Stirling has just undergone a £1.7 million refurbishment. The Old Town Cemetery is at the Top of the Town in Stirling, just below the castle and the Esplanade of Stirling Castle forms its Eastern boundary.

The cemetery expanded outwards from the old Holy Rude Kirkyard between 1857-1859 and, unusually, it is laid out as a pleasure ground for the locals as well as a burial ground. The full story is in the Stirling Observer and there's also a website for the cemetery which includes a map and details of some of the monuments and gravestones at http://www.oldtowncemetery.co.uk/index.html

Sheena
www.setait.co.uk

Thursday 21 May 2009

Transcribing digital images

Thanks to Alex over at winging it, I've discovered some free software to help with transcribing text from the digitised images of records that we're all using now




It's called Transcript and displays the digitised image in the top half of the screen and an RTF text editor in the bottom half so it's far easier to transcribe. You can even set it up to scroll down the image automatically every time you hit the "Enter" key or as the text wraps at the end of each line.

Guess what I've been doing today!

Sheena
www.setait.co.uk

Tuesday 31 March 2009

Scottish OPR burials are online

The Scottish Old Parish Register deaths and burials are now online - a day before planned. ScotlandsPeople has comprehensive guidance notes about these records on their site at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=554&1353

And I've got a meeting in London tomorrow, and another commitment tomorrow night - rats!

Sheena
www.setait.co.uk

Friday 27 March 2009

Scottish OPR burials due online on 1 April

I was looking at the Glasgow-based newspaper The Herald for a Scottish take on the new London records released on Ancestry (covered in my previous post) when I came across this throwaway comment:

On April 1, the final tranche of the old parish registers, death records for the period 1553-1854, will go online.
Hurrah! Guess what I'll be doing on Wednesday!
Sheena

London Metropolitan Archives' records start to go online at Ancestry

Indexes to, and digital images of, the records held by London Metropolitan Archives have started to appear online at Ancestry.

The whole collection spans over 400 years from the 1500s to the 1900s and covers parish baptism and marriage registers, burial registers, Bishops' Transcripts, Non-conformist baptisms, marriages and burials, poor law Board of Guardians records, school admissions and discharge registers, electoral registers and poll books, land tax documents, Surrey marriage bonds and allegations, wills, transportation records from the Middlesex Sessions of the Peace, Diocesan marriage bonds and allegations, Diocesan divorce exhibita and City of London Freedoms. The full collection is due to appear gradually over the next year.

At the moment the online data covers the poor law Board of Guardians Births and Baptisms 1834-1934 and the poor law Board of Guardians Deaths and Burials collection 1834-1906. The London boroughs covered are:

Camden
Islington
Lambeth
Southwark
Tower Hamlets
Wandsworth
Westminster

You will need either a premium or worldwide subscription to view the data.

See the full details at http://landing.ancestry.co.uk/lma/london.aspx

Sheena
www.setait.co.uk