British records online past present future

British Records Online: Past, Present and Future

Darris G. Williams, AG®

PAST

Dr. Williams’s Library

• Opened at Red Cross Street, Cripplegate, London in 1729.

• One of the first libraries open to the public.

• Moved three times but still a center of nonconformist studies.

Dr. Williams’s Library

• Has information about different types of nonconformity and where to look for more information

• Dr. Williams’s Library registers are not here

• Surman index to careers of Congregational and Presbyterian (Unitarian) ministers

• Some local history documents

Society of Genealogists

• Incorporated 8 May 1911

• Centenary celebration

• Unique collections being made available online


• Several indexes at the Society of Genealogists Library are still in card files


• The Griffiths index for Wales is full of good information gleaned from many sources still not online.

The Genealogical Society of Utah

• Founded in 1894 by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

• 1938 microfilming began

• Family history centers started in 1964


• A storage vault was excavated in a granite mountain in the 1960s


• Ancestral File allowed people to submit pedigree information to be added to a computer database

• 1998 development began on FamilySearch.org

• 24 May 1999 the website went live then crashed due to overload

PRESENT

Present

• Archives

• Libraries

• Websites

• More websites

• Social media

FamilySearch 2011 camera locations & numbers

Part of the Free FamilyFreeREG, FreeBMD, FreeCEN

Hayes Manuscript Sources

• 1941 project start

• 1,000 libraries visited

• 30 countries

• Identified almost 100,000 manuscripts

• 17,000 pages published in 1965 & 1975

Providing a picture of everyday life

Scottish Kirk Session records are being made available online

Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales

FUTURE

Partnerships

• FindMyPast/British Library• Welsh Archives Group/FindMyPast• FamilySearch/Ancestry• FamilySearch/FindMyPast• Ancestry/Archives & Societies• FindMyPast/Archives & Societies• National Library of Wales/Ohio Welsh• Origins: National Will Index

Family and Community Reconstitution

A one-place-study (OPS) considers your ancestors in their physical and social context.

I went on in my constant course of preaching, since good god was blessed to do by me, our

divisions were about church – Government … our friends at olny were miserably plundered at olny:

and I lay at peace without disturbance…

If you could buy these for 5 cents each would you get more of them?

Convert Civil Registration References to a Parish Name

Decades of experience is being applied to new technology

FamilySearch Indexing

Post 1837 Marriage Indexing

Education

British records online past present future