NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM : AN IMPORTANT AND EXPANSIVE ARCHIVE BUT A BIT DIFFICULT TO NAVIGATE

NATIONAL ARCHIVES UNITED KINGDOM start page

OK I find this particular on-line catalog a bit difficult. The United States National Archives also was and in recent times was reworked to make it a tad bit easier.

So the first search I used was the word GENEALOGY. Here's where we go:

NATIONAL ARCHIVES UNITED KINGDOM WORD SEARCH GENEALOGY RESULTS

image from Wikipedia

Though some of the listings that come up still are not quite what we are looking for, we're getting there. I'm going to excerpt from the listings involving Catholics and why this is important to genealogy research:

Excerpt: 1 WHY USE THIS GUIDE?

Until 1534, England was a Catholic country. Then, after years of upheaval, the 1559 Act of Supremacy made the Protestant Church of England the established church. Following this act there was a significant increase in the number of state records created documenting Catholics’ status and activities, subject as they were to new laws, taxes and a wave of persecution. The primary focus of this guide is on those records, especially from the 16th and 17th centuries, and how to find them at The National Archives. They include:

records of penalties and punishments

details of arrests

letters from private citizens and spies sent to the authorities

reports on Catholics sent by ecclesiastical and civil authorities

baptism, marriage and burial registers

By the 18th century Catholics were no longer persecuted, but were still effectively barred from entering the professions, holding civil or military office, or inheriting land. Formal emancipation finally came in 1829 and state records relating to Catholics exists in smaller numbers from this date onwards.

Like all churches, Catholic churches kept their own records, though very few of these, in common with most local or parish church records, have found their way into The National Archives.

*** That's my italics, emphasizing that records for Catholics will still be found by finding the dioceses ...

I ENCOURAGE YOU TO GET INTO THIS CATALOG IF YOU ARE RESEARCHING ROOTS OF YOUR AMERICAN, CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN, IRISH, WELSH, or SCOTTISH ANCESTORS!

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND

A little commentary first: IMMIGRATION means people coming INTO a country, EMIGRATION means people going OUT of a country. So records are kept by the country the people are coming into when it's IMMIGRATION and records are kept by the country the people are leaving when it's EMIGRATION records.

image from Wikipedia

The soldiers and airmen's wills is interesting to me. I'm not sure I've heard of such a collection before. Excerpt: The soldiers' wills have been made available online as part of the commemorations of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The poignant documents include the last wishes of 26,000 ordinary Scottish soldiers. Most of them were killed in action, died of wounds or went missing on the Western Front. A smaller number served at Gallipoli, Salonika or in Mesopotamia.

Almost all the wills were written in their pay books by soldiers below the rank of officer, who served in the renowned Scottish infantry and cavalry regiments, as well as in many other British regiments, and all the army corps that were on active service.

In addition to the wills from the Great War, there are about 4,750 wills of Scots soldiers serving in all theatres during the Second World War, including some women auxiliaries, and several hundred from the Boer War and Korean War, and other conflicts between 1857 and 1965.

Used to be called National Archives of Scotland. NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND

NATIONAL RECORDS OF SCOTLAND FAMILY HISTORY START PAGE notes

Birth Death and Marriage Civil Records includingStatutory registers of births, deaths and marriages from 1855

Old Parish Registers (1553 to 1854)

Other Presbyterian church records (1761 to 1854)

Census records (1841 to 1911)

Highland and Island Emigration Society records (on our ScotlandsPeople website)
Valuation roll indexes (1855, 1865, 1875, 1885, 1895, 1905, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1930, 1935 and 1940)

Wills and Testaments (1513 to 1925)

Soldiers' and Airmens' Wills (1857 to 1965)

Military Service Appeal Tribunals (1916-1918)

We also provide access to: Catholic Parish Registers (from 1703) from the Scottish Catholic Archives

Coat of Arms (from 1672) from the Court of the Lord Lyon

WALES : ARCHIVAL RESEARCH and NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES / ARCHIFAU CYMRU and LLFRGELL GENEDLAETHOL

Pride and preservation of the language and history of Wales is important to the archives and library in that small country which is also one of the United Kingdom. However, currently if something you're interested is not digitalized, you cannot get an archivist to find it for you.  The emphasis is on the digitalization.

image from Wikipedia

ARCHIVE WALES = INFORMATION START PAGE

You'll note that the holdings are not focused on Genealogy though your ancestors may be in the collection.

For Genealogy, start with 

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF WALES

Includes maps, civil registration, census records....

Excerpt: The Library is the main repository for family history research in Wales holding a vast number of records useful to the family historian - census returns, probate records, nonconformist records and tithe maps, to name but a few, will help at some point during research.

... The Archive collections hold substantial information relating to many Welsh gentry families and their estates and to individuals and families that have played a significant part in the life of Wales.

LIBRARY WALES : LINKS TO EXTERNAL SOURCES

These may also be useful to you.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA : NATURALIZATION - IMMIGRATION - MILITARY SERVICE - PHOTOGRAPHS - MAPS

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF AUSTRALIA homepage

NATIONAL ARCHIVES AUSTRALIA - WHAT'S IN THE COLLECTION link here for list:

The National Archives' collection contains records about key events and decisions that have shaped Australian history.

With more than 45 million items, our collection mainly includes Australian Government records from Federation in 1901 to now.

Records come from Australian Government:

departments
statutory authorities
royal commissions
military units
security and intelligence agencies
diplomatic posts
law enforcement agencies
Cabinet

We hold some key records that document Australia's journey to Federation.

We have records about:

immigration
military service
transport
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
the environment
communications
security and intelligence
foreign affairs
the arts
many other topics

We also hold some important 19th-century records about colonial activities that were transferred to the Australian Government. These include:

customs
patents
defense
lighthouses
naturalization
shipping
postal and telegraphic services

We hold some High Court of Australia records and papers from high profile Australians.

Governors-general, prime ministers, ministers, High Court judges and senior public servants have sent records to the National Archives.

While most of our records are paper files, we also have:

photographs
audiovisual records
sound recordings
maps and plans
posters
objects
digital records

Our collection is unique and cannot be replaced.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF IRELAND : GAELIC or ENGLISH LANGUAGE

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF IRELAND 

And check out this link of STORIESNATIONAL ARCHIVES IRELAND : STORIES

Be sure to check the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF IRELAND

 links to newly added archival collections.

CANADA LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES NATIONAL ARCHIVES GENEALOGY OF OUR NORTHERN NEIGHBOR : CENSUS, VITAL RECORDS, IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, MILITARY

CANADA NATIONAL ARCHIVES - GENEALOGY  

Canada's National Archives provides census history and a searchable database.  Learn the history of census taking along with the history of the development of the country - what's missing - what's available.

The Canadian Confederation was organized in 1867.  The Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into the Dominion of Canada...

Census was conducted in some areas well before that. Some Census is missing.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES OF CANADA - GENEALOGY  Vital Records, Immigration, Citizenship, Military

As a note the UNITED STATES CENSUS is the same: If it was not a state, then it was not counted during the Federal Census.  And if the population of a county was small, it might not have been included in the Federal Census either.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES : DON'T FORGET TO USE THESE FANTASTIC RESOURCES

Back in the day, when I started teaching genealogy at my local public library, the Internet was fairly new. The newest computers had been installed and people were just learning to use the Internet and fewer people had purchased home computers so to the library they went. Fewer people had cell phones and those came with Internet capacity.  I didn't.  I actually resisted cell phones for some time for all the reasons people do to this day.  At the time I provided students with lists of web sites and the actual http addresses.... I must've had a hundred or so bookmarked...

Today I think people do word searches to bring up web sites rather than the belabored input of the https.  I've done genealogy research using a cell phone, especially during Covid-19 closures but I didn't print out and then the cell phone died...

Back in the day there were many genealogy oriented start ups. These days certain ones are dominating.  So it's easy to feel compelled to use those one, two, or three or four.  However, I think people are failing to consider where the ORIGINAL SOURCE MATERIAL comes from that the databases use.  These are usually governmental; federal, state, county, and city. Next come church or religious records.

I have an account with the NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES - NARA. (The Library of Congress is also helpful.) And the National Archives of few other countries. 

Some countries are newer at having National Archive resources digitized. YOU WILL WANT TO INTERACT WITH THEIR ARCHIVISTS IF YOU HAVE MORE QUESTIONS and perhaps, the old fashioned way, send for copies or pay them to research for you.  This is usually possible through e-mail. Some will ask you to set up an account, others not.  (I know! More accounts and passwords to keep track of...)

For the next few weeks I'm going to link to some of the National Archives of other countries that you should consider when researching - especially when you find that the genealogy databases DO NOT HAVE EVERYTHING.  And they do not.

C 2024 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot