Great War Pension Records

The Western Front Association (WFA) has announced that it has secured the safe storage and preservation of over six million Great War soldiers' pension record cards after learning that the Ministry of Defence was no longer able to retain and manage this archive.  There was a possibility that the records would have had to be destroyed unless they could be passed for safe keeping to a reputable organisation. 

The WFA has made a study and catalogued the primary information for of each group of records in the archive, and arranged the safe transfer and storage of the records to the WFA's secure premises.

During the Great War, dependents of each serving British soldier, sailor, airman and nurse who was killed were entitled to a pension, as were those service personnel who were wounded or otherwise incapacitated due to the conflict. There is a card for each. These cards are categorised as follows:

• Other Ranks Died (this contains nearly one million individual records)
• Widows and Dependents of Other Ranks Died (in excess of one million records)
• Other Ranks Survived: Requested/Rejected/Receiving Pension (over 2.5 million records)
• Officers survived and Officers' Widows (approximately 150,000 records)
• Merchant Naval Cards (about 5,000 records

The WFA is still working towards this online database, but prior to the records being digitised it will offer manual lookups upon application for a fee.

English Wills

In England, wills fall into two main categories - pre-1858 and post-1858.  Pre-1858 wills were probated in one of two principal courts for England and Wales - the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in the south, searchable at www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk and the Prerogative Court of York in the north, searchable at www.britishorigins.com.  Below these were other levels of ecclesiastical courts, including what were known as peculiars.
Post-1858 wills were proved at the Principal Probate Registry, established 12 January 1858, and can be searched on Ancestry.  Copies of wills can be ordered at a cost.

Essex Police Museum

Has one of your relatives worked in the Essex Police Constabulary?

The Essex Police Museum holds the following indexes on the following;

• Police officers in the Essex County Constabulary from the 1880s to present day
• Police officers who served in the Colchester Borough Police and transferred to the Essex County Constabulary in 1947
• Police officers serving in Southend Borough Police 1914 - 1969
• Police War Reserves - World War II
• Women Police Auxiliaries - World War II

These indexes will provide basic details concerning an individual, such as date/place of birth, dates of service, commendations, misconducts, sickness, training, pay, reason for leaving and rank held.  Basic information is free, full records incur a cost.

19th Century Immigrants to Britain

The records of thousands of 19th century immigrants to Britain are now available to search and download online. The collection, which covers the period 1801 to 1871, includes records relating to more than 7,000 people who applied to become British citizens under the 1844 Naturalisation Act, as well as a small number of papers relating to denization, a form of British citizenship that conferred some but not all the rights of a British subject.
Applicants were required under the act to present a memorial to the Secretary of State at the Home Office stating their age, trade and duration of residence. These papers are now available online for the first time.
They include a rich mix of individuals from across the world, including a large number of immigrants from French and German states, as well as Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Poland, Sweden and the Italian states.

The majority settled in London, establishing immigrant communities, such as 'Little Italy' in Clerkenwell, which still exist today. Many Italian immigrants were ice cream makers, plasterers, confectioners, restaurateurs, and shop keepers, while many German immigrants settled in the East End of London working in the sugar refineries and in the meat and baking trades.

What's New on Trove

Have you checked back to Trove recently to see what's new?  While we all continue “Troving” (yes, that is now a word), the team who digitise the newspapers for the National Library of Australia have been working hard.
Here’s their list of new newspapers:
NEW SOUTH WALES
- The Gundagai Times and Tumut, Adelong and Murrumbidgee District Advertiser (NSW: 1868-1931)
- The Shoalhaven Telegraph (NSW: 1879-1937)
- The Sydney Stock and Station Journal (NSW: 1896-1924)
- Boorowa News (NSW: 1951-1954)
- The Braidwood Review and District Advocate (NSW: 1915-1954)
- The Clarence River Advocate (NSW: 1898-1949)
- The Gundagai Independent and Pastoral, Agricultural & Mining Advocate (NSW: 1898 – 1928)
- The Hebrew Standard of Australasia (NSW: 1895-1953)
- Intelligence (Bowral, NSW: 1884)
- The International Socialist (Sydney, NSW: 1910-1920)
- The Newcastle Chronicle and Hunter River District News (NSW: 1859-1866)
- Referee (Sydney, NSW: 1886-1939)
- The Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser (NSW: 1904-1929)
- Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW: 1895-1930)
QUEENSLAND
- Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald & General Advertiser (Qld: 1861-1908)
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
- Herald (Adelaide, SA: 1899-1910)
- Murray Pioneer (Renmark, SA: 1942-1950)
- Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record (Renmark, SA: 1913-1942)
- News (Adelaide, SA: 1923-1954)
- Petersburg Times (SA: 1887-1919)
- The Times and Northern Advertiser, Peterborough, South Australia (SA: 1919-1950)
- Wallaroo Times (Port Wallaroo, SA: 1882-1888)
- The Wallaroo Times and Mining Journal (Port Wallaroo, SA: 1865-1881)
- Weekly Herald (Adelaide, SA: 1894-1898)
VICTORIA
- Ballan Times (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Clunes Guardian and Gazette (Vic: 1918-1918)
- Cobden Times (Vic: 1918)
- Cobden Times and Heytesbury Advertiser (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Coleraine Albion and Western Advertiser (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Creswick Advertiser (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Daylesford Advocate, Yandoit, Glenlyon and Eganstown Chronicle (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Geelong Advertiser (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Grenville Standard (Vic: 1915 – 1918)
- Hamilton Spectator (Vic: 1914 – 1918)
- Koroit Sentinel and Tower Hill Advocate (Vic : 1914-1918)
- Lang Lang Guardian (Vic : 1914-1918)
- Mount. Alexander Mail (Vic: 1914-1917)
- Penshurst Free Press (Vic: 1914-1918)
- Richmond Australian (Vic: 1914-1916)
- Riponshire Advocate (Vic: 1914 – 1918)
- Rochester Express (Vic: 1914 – 1918)
- Talbot Leader (Vic: 1914 – 1918)
- Weekly News (Yarraville) (Vic: 1914-1918)

The National Library of Australia’s digitised newspapers currently has over 10 million pages from over 500 Australian newspapers online. All of these digitised newspapers are fully text-searchable, and users can enhance the data by subject tagging, text correction and annotations (have you done that?). And of course the newspapers are FREE for everyone to use and browse.

British Census Dates

The 1841 Census was the fifth decennial census of the population of Britain, however it was the first useful census to genealogists interested in their English heritage, as it was the first time that names of individuals within each household were recorded, along with their ages, occupations and places of birth. Only census data up to 1911 is available for public viewing
Currently published census dates are :
1841 - Sunday 6 June
1851 - Sunday 30 March
1861 - Sunday 7 April
1871 - Sunday 2 April
1881 - Sunday 3 April
1891 - Sunday 5 April
1901 - Sunday 31 March
1911 - Sunday 2 April
The 1921 census was taken on Sunday 19 June, and is due to be published on 1 January 2022.

Ask About Ireland

Ask About Ireland and the Cultural Heritage Project is an initiative of public libraries together with local museums and archives in the digitisation and online publication of the original, the unusual and the unique material from their local studies' collections to create a national Internet resource for culture.  The website currently includes Griffiths Evaluation, free E-Books and other resources.
The participating organisations have selected material of particular public interest from their holdings within a variety of common topics ranging from sport, transport and architecture to flora and fauna and Irish writers. The material is then digitised (scanned, digitally photographed, recorded etc.) and set in a narrative context.

Ask About Ireland is a constantly growing resource with content being added to the website on an ongoing basis. While there is lots of material on this site of interest to all, this is just a sample of what is available in public libraries throughout the country.