When I tell people what I do for a living, I often get the response “Well it’s easy isn’t it now, everything’s online!” but actually there is only about 15% to 20% of records which can help research our ancestors available online. Of course, this is growing all the time.
My real passion is researching family history before the 19th century. And whilst this can include the limited records available online there is vast array of resources available to the family historian both in local and national archives and for me there is nothing more thrilling than getting your hands on a document that has been around for a few hundred years.
Many of the records available in local and national archives are unlikely to ever make it online, save in an indexed and/or transcribed format, because of the very nature, age and delicacy of such records.
This therefore is the first in a series of blogs examining some of the records to be found in local and national archives taking our research beyond the parish registers and and the records of the parish discussed in earlier blogs, some of which continue into the 19th and 20th century.
In this blog, I am simply going to provide an alphabetical list of records and approximate dates they cover. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and all manner of records can be found in your local archives and the National Archives. The best way to find out what they have available is to search the online catalogue for your local archives and the National Archives discovery catalogue (https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/). Or contact your local archives to see how they can help.
The records include:
Apprenticeship Records 1563 to 1811
Chancery Court records 14th Century onwards
Deeds 12th century onwards
Ecclesiastical Court records (Ecclesiastical courts were created in 1072 but survival of records varies)
Education records 1500 onwards
Hearth Tax 1662 to 1666; 1669 to 1674
Inquisitions Post Mortem 13th century to 1661
Land Tax records 1693 to 1963
Lay subsidy rolls 13th century to 1624
Manorial records 13th to 20th Century
Militia Lists 1757 to 1831
Monumental Inscriptions
Newspapers 18th century onwards
Occupation records mid-17th century inwards
Pipe Rolls 1581 – 1591
Poll books (electoral roll) 1696 onwards (1832 onwards)
Poll Tax specific years from 1377
Protestation Oath Returns 1641
Quarter Session Records 1361 to 1971
Solemn League and Covenant 1644
Trade directories mid-17th century onwards
Tudor and Stuart Muster rolls 16th and 17th century
Wills and Probate records 1384 to 1858; 1858 to date
Window tax 1696 to 1834
Some of the above topics will cover several record sources and not all these sources will be covered in an individual block, similar records will be discussed in a single blog.
If you would like to know more about these records, why not subscribe to my blog and receive an email notification when a new blog is available.
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