The main Research Links page covers sites with a specific geographical focus, main subscription sites and lots more.
Also see Cutlock & Co Occupations page.
Article Contents
Peoples, faiths
- Romany and Traveller Family History Society, Gypsy Genealogy, Borrow’s Gypsies Blog
- Rootschat has a dedicated discussion board for Travelling People. Fairground Ancestors site, National Fairground and Circus Archive.
- Jewish:
- Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain.
- The database for the Jewish population in 1851 has moved to JCR-UK (Jewish Communities and Records).
- Hidden Treasure: celebrating Jewish archives in Britain (new 2020).
- Cemetery Scribes – Jewish tombstone inscriptions UK database.
- Scottish Jewish Archive Centre.
- Catholic Family History Society has closed – material available via MLFHS.
- Dictionary of Methodism on Wesley Historical Society website; Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History at Brookes University; My Methodist History.
- Quaker Family History Society. The Library of the Religious Society of Friends has an online catalogue.
Nationalities
- Anglo-Italian Family History Society.
- Italo-Scottish Research Cluster at University of Edinburgh.
- Try the country information sections on familysearch.org and Ancestry – you may need to search for these.
Living conditions
Poverty, ill-health, consequences
- The Workhouse A major resource on the buildings, rules, Poor Laws, life in the workhouse, etc.
- A number of organisations have worked on ‘More than Oliver Twist‘, a look at 1881 inmates in various workhouses, including Gressenhall in Norfolk.
- Old disease names and modern equivalents. Alternative list, or this list of ‘illnesses encountered in genealogy‘.
- Historic Hospital Admissions Records Project – 19th century children’s hospital records.
- Living Heritage section on the UK Parliament’s website – the role of legislation in the development of society (e.g. child labour, slavery, working hours).
Migration
- Welsh Mormon History site is mainly about those who converted in Wales and migrated to Utah.
- TheShipsList Find your ancestors on ships’ passenger lists, also immigration reports, newspaper records, shipwreck information, ship pictures, etc.
Criminal, convicts, transportation
- Digital Panopticon allows you to “search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey … and to learn more about crime and criminal justice in the past”. Also transportation records, hulks and wider prison registers, ‘Metropolitan Police Register of Habitual Criminals’ and plenty more.
- Prison History (new 2018) is an online database of prisons in 19th century England, with info on the records available.
- Our Criminal Ancestors is “a public engagement project that encourages and supports people and communities to explore the criminal past of their own families, communities, towns and regions.”
- First Fleet – education site from University of Woolongong.
- Female Convicts Research Centre focuses on Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).
- The various Australian state archives generally have convicts records and guides. Tasmanian archives family history section (was Van Diemen’s Land).
Institutions, education, children
- Barnardo Homes was one of the first providers of children homes and orphanages and at one time had a large number. Goldings website The Goldonian has collated a directory. Barnardos has an advice page on researching those that have been in its care.
- The Children’s Society (originally Waifs and Strays Society) Hidden Lives website.
- Children’s Homes website “aims to provide information on all of the many and varied institutions that became home for thousands of children and young people in Britain”.
- School Records – info on what school records are available online.
- Education in the UK – history of the development of England’s school system.
- Scout Assocation Archive.
Military
- Army Museums Ogilby Trust – the guide to the regimental and corps museums of the British Army throughout the United Kingdom.
- Imperial War Museum – check their collections and research section.
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
- War Memorials Online.
- Museum of Military Medicine; British Military Nurses (Scarlet Finders).
- National Archives – abbreviations used on WW1 medal cards.
- The Long, Long Trail – The British Army in the Great War of 1914-1918. Has useful info such as letter prefixes to soldier numbers.
- Crimean War Research Society.
- The Soldier in later Medieval England.
- Forces War Records.
- Naval-history.net Royal Navy and US.
Other
- Museum of English Rural Life – food, farming and the countryside.
- Industries of the West Midlands on Revolutionary Players site.
- Working Class Movement Library.
- Foundation for Medieval Genealogy has a useful links page. Also see Medieval Genealogy website written from practical experience, with explanations as well as links.
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