Genealogy Chat

Does anyone know if there are any records that can be accessed for people who used to work for Islington Council (or equivalent) in the 1800 and early 1900's? Looks like one side of my family had the monopoly there! Jan

The Harleian Society have recorded parish register details from a number of London churches although most seem to be pre-1800s. It’s worth checking to see if your library holds any copies of these books. I just looked up a marriage that I had found on the IGI and it gave me the witness names and that they were bachelor/spinster of this parish. Saved myself a tript to Westminster Archives! http://harleian(.)co.uk/

If your ancestors had sufficient money to be the main tenant in a property, look to see if rate books survive. We were able to establish roughly when best friend's ancestor moved (in 1852 - just after a murder was committed in his lodging house!) by consulting the rates books in Westminster Archives.

City of London Livery Companies - Another site with useful links is http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/links/citycos.shtml

Lyla, Thankyou, I will add to your records board thread, though I think he already on there John Pursey born 1836/7 City of london,although 22 in 1861 census. Kim

Original Added by Peter Walker on 17/02/2005 10:03:03 Site about London Just found this site, Its a Free to join site www.storyoflondon.*com/index.php lot of history info and chat about London, research done by locals

Original Added by Louise Randall on 13/05/2005 21:03:36 website of old photos of S.E. LONDON and its suburbs I remember seeing a thread about this site a while ago but thought I would post it again as there may be others who didn't see it (couldn't find the old thread). It is http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/index1a.html Also has a bit of history on the different areas. Louise

Original Added by Totally Confused on 16/05/2005 21:57:51 Another interesting East London site Just doing a bit of trawling (in between making my Tesco order online) and found this interesting site: www(.)eastlondonhistory(.)com for those of you whose ancestors (poor sods) lived in the east end. Lots of brilliant stuff.

Not sure it will help tracing anyone but have a look at www.tengenerations.org.uk Fantastic insight into London life back to 1700 Lou

Hi Kim If you think he might have served an apprenticeship in City of London there is a name index for Cordwainers at the Guildhall Library (see the link I gave above for dates etc). If you want me to check the index for him feel free to add a request on my rainy day thread on the records board. They usually started apprenticeships at age 14 so let me know the approximate date especially if it was a common name. Lyla

Lyla, my 'brick wall' ancestor was a Cordwainer born City of London (but earliest trace is in Micheledever Hampshire in 1851, unfortunately not living with his family .) Where do you get 'Cordwainer' apprenticeship records from? Many thanks Kim

Original Added by Sandra Goldsmith on 26/06/2004 15:49:20 VERY USEFUL FREE SITE!!!!Bow Creek School, Leamouth, Poplar Anyone looking for people from Orchard House/Place, area in Poplar, London. Look at the 'Bow Creek School' website. It has names, d.o.b.'s, address's and much, much more on this site. If you are connected to the area in any way it is very useful. Stombling upon this site is what got me started on my search, and boy am i addicted now!!!! Sandra www.bowcreek(.)co(.)uk

Following on from Totally Confused's point about directories: www.historicaldirectories.org/hd/index.asp This site has various London post office/Kelly's etc directories for various periods. Some cover inner London, some the suburbs and not all areas/times are covered, but if you are patient you can often find people. This is particularly useful for tracing Londoners between censuses, or dates between certificates. You need to click on search by keyword, then choose London area then the decade. You can then click browse and put in a page number. The program tells you how many pages the directory you have selected has, so I usually put in a page number about halfway through. Then you just have to go forwards or backwards till you find what you want. I have found publican ancestors, fishmongers (cunningly hidden under 'Salesmen - fish'), as well as private residents in the street directory. The FRC also has London Directories in its census index section. nell

Many of our ancestors were from the Shoreditch/Dalston/Bethnal Green areas, which seemed to have churches on every corner. If you find relatives on the census then it's really worth buying the old ordnance survey maps for the area because churches are marked. This saves hours of trawling through church records away from the address. Maps can be bought on-line from Alan Godfrey maps.

Hi, A brilliant way to track relatives if you're not sure of where all the different parishes are in London is to download Parloc - this is a freeware program available from www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder(.)co(.)uk . The program is brilliant for establishing which parishes to concentrate your efforts on when searching. If you have, for instance, one known rellie born in Cripplegate you can then enter 'Cripplegate' in the parish field and find all the other parishes within a specified distance i.e. .5 mile. Very handy if you're trying to ascertain which names from the IGI records could possibly be connected. Hope this makes sense!! Emma.

Ive managed to find some of mine in trade directories - you can find directories at historicaldirectories site. Its not an easy site to navigate, but worth having a look.

Odds and ends for London here: http://www.londonancestor.*com/ Sue:-)

With London/Middlesex census addresses, it's always worth remembering that a lot of the roads still exist, and a search of www.royalmail*.*com (remove *'s) will give you a postcode, which can then be used to search something like multimap, giving you an exact location if you're trying to tie families/people together. Has worked for me on several occasions. Trudy

There's a little book called (I think) Lists of Londoners, which suggests all sorts of different places in which you can find lists! There are also books available on London Schools and (rather out of date now) London Cemeteries and Crematoria. Try the Genfair website for other titles.

For Docklands ancestors there is a lot of useful information at www.parishregister*.*com including among other things some online parish records and a lot of information about Watermen The East of London Family History Society www.eolfhs.org.uk/eolintro.htm has lots of helpful links and message boards. Charles Booth and the London Poor. This website gives a good insight into the lives of people living in nineteenth century London and maybe you will even find that he interviewed one of your ancestors or walked down the street where they lived. http://booth.lse.ac.uk/static/a/9_1.html#i www.victorianlondon.org has lots of interesting information about all aspects of life in Victorian London Another REALLY useful site is http://www.gendocs.demon*.*co.uk which has lots of information about Victorian Churches, Streets, Institutions, Inns etc The Proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674 – 1834 – Maybe you will find an ancestor mentioned here - http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ Anyone got any more useful websites?