Shauna Hicks History Enterprises

Shauna Hicks History Enterprises is a small personal part time business specialising in local and family history research. Established in August 2009, it seeks to assist people in researching their own family and community histories.  I recently attended a seminar at which Shauna Hicks was a speaker, and thoroughly enjoyed her talk.  Shauna's website holds a wealth of information, links, notes from her various talks, and more. 

National Archives of Australia

Defence was one of the first functions to be passed to the new Australian Government in 1901. Until then, responsibility for defence had rested with the six colonies.

The National Archives’ holdings on defence date largely from 1901 but include some colonial records, such as those on the Boer War.

Records include :

• service records – personnel dossiers and case files
• administration – how the Commonwealth has managed the defence of Australia
• the forces – Army, Navy, Air Force
• conflicts – Boer War to Vietnam War
• films - Films by and about Australia's defence
• other defence matters – war crimes, weapons trials, disasters

Free BMD

FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records.  The FreeBMD Database currently contains 214,279,072 distinct records.  While not complete the site, and its sister sites FreeCEN (Census data) and FreeREG (Parish Registers) are well worth checking.

Dead Pubs

Was your ancestor a Pubican?  Dead Pubs is a historical street & pub history directory of London, Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Middlesex, Suffolk, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Sussex, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Devon, Somerset & Dorset.  Many listings even have photos of the pub.

Who Do You Think You Are Live 2012

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? LIVE 2012 has finished.

Many of the presenters gave handouts for their talks and workshops for 2012 to the Society of Genealogists, and these are now being made available FREE on the SOG website.  More notes and slides will become available in the coming weeks, so visit the SOG Family History Show page and take a look at what is available.

British Newspaper Archive

The British Newspaper Archive has come out of beta and is now live. This is a collection of some 65 million articles appearing in various British newspapers going back over 300 years.  It is free to search, although access to the actual newspaper article requires a subscription, and you can buy a two-day subscription if that is all you require.

Jewish Genealogical Society

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain has integrated their databases onto the JewishGen system to form one integrated database with JewishGen. The combined database lists more than 220,000 records of individuals from the United Kingdom as well as the Republic of Ireland. Included are various types of records such as birth, marriage, burials, census, trader lists, etc. Access is free.