Dublin Prisoner Records

Four volumes of historic Irish police records have been made available online for the first time. Digitised by University College Dublin, the Dublin Metropolitan Police Prisoners Books provide the names of people in the city who found themselves on the wrong side of the law between 1905-08 and 1911-18. The browsable records list the names, ages, addresses and occupations of those who were arrested, plus details of their alleged offence. In most cases, the handwritten entries also provide information about the outcome of the subsequent trial and punishment.

According to the University website, the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) Prisoners Books for 1905-1908 and 1911-1918 are amongst the most valuable new documents to come to light on the revolutionary decade. They include important information on social and political life in the capital during the last years of the Union, from the period of widespread anticipation of Home Rule, to the advent of the 1913 Lockout, the outbreak of the First World War, the Easter Rising and its aftermath, including the conscription crisis of 1918.

Scottish Mental Health and Paternity Records

Graham and Emma Maxwell, genealogists at Maxwell Ancestry, have developed the Scottish Indexes website with a wealth of resources to help you trace your Scottish family tree online. They have a large collection of indexes, from unique sources such as prison and court records to more commonly used sources such as birth, marriage, death and census records. While currently many records are from the south of Scotland, their Quaker records and mental health records cover all of Scotland, and more records from other areas of Scotland are to be added soon.

Online record sets include :

• Pre-1841 Censuses and Population Lists
• 1841 Census
• 1851 Census
• 1861 Census
• Mental Health Records
• Prison Registers
• Sheriff Court Paternity Decrees
• Register of Deeds
• Register of Sasines
• Kelso Dispensary Patient Registers
• Non-OPR Births/Baptisms
• Non-OPR Banns/Marriages
• Non-OPR Deaths/Burials

In addition, Scottish Indexes has also set up a dedicated Mental Health Institutions in Scotland homepage, providing historical information and details of locally held archive resources for hospitals that are yet to appear online.  Institutions are indexed by County.

British Red Cross WW1 Volunteers

A digitisation and transcription project to make thousands of nursing records available on the web has reached completion. Family historians can now search through over 244,000 British Red Cross personnel index cards, providing details of men and women who served as Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) workers during the First World War. First launched in 2014, the project was undertaken by the British Red Cross in partnership with Kingston University, with help from more than 800 volunteers around the world. You can search the collection for free here.

Over 90,000 people volunteered for the Red Cross in World War 1 both at home and overseas.  Volunteers were not just from Britain - they came from all over the Commonwealth, including a number of Australians.  Below are the cards for Victorian volunteer Jessie Traill, who spent much of the war nursing in France.

Inside History Magazine

The latest issue of Inside History magazine is out now - issue 34, May-Jun. Feature articles of this edition include:

• 140+ new family history resources online
• Our expert’s guide to DNA tests
• The mysterious bigamist and his historian descendant: uncovering a criminal ancestor
• What’s new on Trove
• The Australian Women’s Army Service in World War II
• Life on the River Murray for lock-building families
• Anne Summers’ take on Australian women’s history
• How the scientific discovery of longitude shaped maritime history
• The life and lies of Aussie conwoman Ethel Livesey
• A history lover’s guide to Albany
• An 1840s whaling shipwreck discovered in WA
• The 19th-century Irish town and maps now online
• The latest history news, events, book and app reviews, and more. On sale now!

The British Colonist Newspaper

On December 11th, 1858, in the midst of a gold rush, Amor de Cosmos inked up an old hand press and launched a newspaper -- the British Colonist -- into the world.    Published in Victoria, Canada, it became the leading paper in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia.  From the extraordinary discoveries of gold and outbreaks of war, to the mundane shipping news and advertisements for insomnia cures - “In every thing that concerns British Columbia we shall take a deep and permanent interest” said de Cosmos.

The website BritishColonist.ca published online this historic newspaper from 1858 to 1950.  At various times named the British Colonist, the Daily British Colonist and the Daily Colonist, it is still published today in Victoria as the Times Colonist. The most recent addition to the online archive (1941 to 1950) covered some 67,000 pages. The Times Colonist is the oldest newspaper in Western Canada and contains a wealth of information for anyone researching Victoria, Vancouver Island and the surrounding areas. The database can be searched by keyword and access is free.