What's new on Ancestry?

Title	Category	Records
UK, Burial and Cremation Index, 1838-2014	Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish	1,610,623
Ireland, Royal Irish Constabulary Pensions, 1873-1925	Military	130,318
Canada, Certificates of Military Instruction, 1867-1932	Military	93,655
UK, Royal Air Force Muster Roll, 1918	Military	194,814
UK, British Jewry Roll of Honour, 1914-1918	Military	57,202
UK, Naval and Military Courts Martial Registers, 1806-1930	Military	838,431
Iowa, World War II Bonus Case Files for Beneficiaries, 1947-1959	Military	19,760
UK, British Army Lists, 1882-1962	Military	2,421,506
Orange Free State, South Africa, Estate Files, 1951-2006	Wills, Probates, Land, Tax & Criminal	218,266
UK, Military Deserters, 1812-1927	Military	302,802
Hawaii, Passenger Lists, 1843-1898	Immigration & Travel	165,630
Cape Province, South Africa, Estates Death Notice Index, 1834-1956	Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish	316,197
Western Australia, Australia, Land Leases, Licences, Applications and Selected Images, 1821-1938	Wills, Probates, Land, Tax & Criminal	313,805
South Africa, Select Estates Death Notice Index, 1833-2008	Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish	44,432
Transvaal Province, South Africa, Estates Death Notice Index, 1855-1976	Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish	449,990
South Africa, Slaves and Free Blacks Records Index, 1658-1835	Census & Electoral Rolls	22,128
UK, British Army Recipients of the Military Medal, 1914-1920	Military	88,543
Dorset, England, Poor Law Apprenticeship Records, 1623-1898	Wills, Probates, Land, Tax & Criminal	2,739
Bavaria, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1556-1973 (in German)	Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish	3,625,488
UK & Ireland, Medical Directories, 1845-1942	Schools, Directories & Church Histories	738,852
UK, The Midwives Roll, 1904-1959	Schools, Directories & Church Histories	398,334
UK, Medical and Dental Students Registers, 1882-1937	Schools, Directories & Church Histories	92,436
UK, Dentist Registers, 1879-1942	Schools, Directories & Church Histories	124,647
UK, Roll of the Indian Medical Service, 1615 -1930	Schools, Directories & Church Histories	8,443

Scotland's Places is now free to search

Big news for those with Scottish ancestors -  the Government-supported website ScotlandsPlaces has removed the subscription fee from its digital collections, meaning users now have unlimited access to millions of historical documents including the following :

Historical Tax Rolls

• Carriage Tax, 1785-1798, (20 volumes)
• Cart Tax, 1785-1798, (14 volumes)
• Clock and Watch Tax, 1797-1798, (2 volumes)
• Consolidated Schedules of Assessed Taxes, 1798-1799 (32 volumes)
• Dog Tax, 1797-1798, (2 volumes)
• Farm Horse Tax, 1797-1798, (13 volumes)
• Female Servant Tax, 1785-1792, (28 volumes)
• Hearth Tax, 1691-1695, (43 volumes)
• Horse Tax, 1785-1798, (33 volumes)
• Inhabited House Tax, 1778-1798 (64 volumes)
• Land Tax, 1645-1831, (129 volumes)
• Male Servant Tax, 1777-1798, (27 volumes)
• Poll Tax, 1694-1698, (88 volumes)
• Shop Tax, 1785-1789, (8 volumes)
• Window Tax, 1748-1798, (218 volumes)

Ordnance Survey Name Books

• Aberdeenshire, 1865-1878, (91 volumes)
• Argyll, 1868-1878, (81 volumes)
• Ayrshire, 1855-1857, (64 volumes)
• Banffshire, 1867-1869, (28 volumes)
• Berwickshire, 1856-1858, (41 volumes)
• Buteshire, 1855-1864, (7 volumes)
• Caithness, 1871-1873, (15 volumes)
• Clackmannanshire, 1861-1862, (7 volumes)
• Dumfriesshire, 1848-1858, (55 volumes)
• Dunbartonshire, 1860, (18 volumes)
• East Lothian, 1853-1854, (55 volumes)
• Fife and Kinross-shire, 1853-1855, (135 volumes) 
• Forfarshire (Angus), 1857-1861, (84 volumes)
• Inverness-shire, 1876-1878, (86 volumes)
• Kincardineshire, 1863, (20 volumes)
• Kircudbrightshire, 1848-1851, (159 volumes)
• Lanarkshire, 1858-1861, (50 volumes)
• Midlothian, 1852-1853, (135 volumes)
• Morayshire, 1868-1871, (23 volumes)
• Nairnshire, 1869, (7 volumes)
• Orkney, 1878-1880, (26 volumes)
• Peeblesshire, 1856-1858, (47 volumes)
• Perthshire, 1856-1858, (79 volumes)
• Renfrewshire, 1856-1857, (21 volumes)
• Ross and Cromarty, 1848-1852, (187 volumes)
• Roxburghshire, 1858-1860, (42 volumes)
• Selkirkshire, 1858, (15 volumes)
• Shetland, 1877-1878, (26 volumes)
• Stirlingshire, ca 1864, (27 volumes)
• Sutherland, 1871-1875, (35 volumes)
• West Lothian, 1855-1859, (69 volumes)
• Wigtownshire, 1845-1849, (88 volumes)

RCAHMS Archives

• Alexander Curle diaries, 1908-1953 (14 volumes)
• Inventories, 1909-1992 (30 volumes)

Burgh registers

• Aberdeenshire Burgh Registers, 1398-1511 (8 volumes)

Official Reports

• Medical Officer of Health Reports, 1891
• Land Ownership Commission Reports, 1872-1873

Published Gazetteers and Atlases

• Hay Shennan, County and Parish Boundaries, 1892
• An Atlas of Scottish History to 1707

Hydrographic Surveys

• Bathmetrical Surveys of Scottish Lochs, 1898-1909

PROV Website Test Available

The new PROV website is now available in test (beta) form: beta.prov.vic.gov.au. The new site has been developed to provide you with a faster search and simpler navigation, making finding what you’re looking for a lot easier.

It includes:

• topic pages for our most popular collections
• common questions for new and experienced researchers
• a photographic page listing both our digitised and non-digitised collections
• a page featuring online exhibitions about Victorian state history.

At first glance the new website is much easier to use and navigate around - I even managed to find a few new pieces of information about my family, including some coronial records and wills.  I think the developers at PROV have done a great job and put effort into understanding how the public use their site.  Well done!  Have a look and tell me what you think.

Find Your Ancestor by Researching Other People

It may seem like a waste of our valuable research time to research people who we don’t even know are related, but it can be time well spent.

Look at the people mentioned in wills – who were the executors and administrators of the estate?  Who witnessed the will?  Who were the guardians of any minors?   Remember guardians were not necessarily appointed to take care of the children personally – their role was to protect their legal interests. All these important roles were generally not given to strangers.  Who were the beneficiaries?  Wills do not just list surviving children, they often also give the married names of adult daughters. How does each person fit in?

Look at godparents at a christening or baptism, not just for your direct ancestors, but for all their siblings as well.  Each child may have different godparents – again, it is not a role given to strangers.  Who are they, and why were they chosen for the role?

Unless your couple eloped, look at the witnesses to a marriage.  Remember to look at both the civil and church marriage records if applicable, and if a person married more than once, check both marriages.  The same applies for informants on a death certificate, neighbours in a census or electoral roll. 

In shipping records, look at where others on the same ship came from.  Look at others already settled in the place your family settled.  Sometimes people from the same area migrated in a group, or followed others who had already made the journey.

Revisit your documents now and then.  With new information discovered since you obtained each document, new names connect to your family in new ways.  You never know what brick walls you might break through by researching someone who, at first glance, does not appear to be connected to your family at all.