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.

From Ireland

The genealogy website FromIreland has posted an amazing collection of about 14,500 photographs of Irish gravestones, making it one of the largest Irish gravestone photograph collections. The collection is arranged in albums by county. The main counties covered are Kilkenny (4,600 images) and Laois (6,800 images), with additional images from Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kildare, Limerick and Offaly. The images have been transcribed and are searchable.  A number of other Irish records and resources are also available through the site.  Access is free.  

Shetland Newspaper Transcriptions

The Shetland Newspaper Transcriptions by Janice Halcrow aims to provide indexes of historic births, marriages and death announcements made in the Shetland newspapers available to as wide an audience as possible. The Zetland Times started publication in 1872 and changed its name to The Shetland Times in 1873 and as such it continues to this day. The Shetland News was published from 1885 to 1963.  Announcements are transcribed exactly as they appeared in the original newspapers misspellings and all!  

Danish State Archives

Probate records from the islands of Sjaelland, Bornholm and Maribo are now online from the Danish StateArchives. Many court records are also now available as well as more records from Copenhagen, including death records and fire insurance records. Being able to use the site in Danish, German or English is a definite plus.  Access is free.