Genealogy Information


LINKS

Lancashire Record Office Home Page. Looking for genealogy Info or research for Preston then this is the site you want.

SEE http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/LAN/ for the best site for Lancashire genealogy Info links.

Some Useful Addesses;

You may find the following addresses useful in you seach of your ancestry

FAMILY TREE MAGAZINE
61 Great Whyte. Romsey. Huntingdon. Cambridgeshire. PE17 IHL
Telephone +44 (0)1487 814050

BIRTH, MARRIAGE and DEATH CERTIFICATE ENQUIRIES
General Register Office PO Box 2. South Port. Merseyside.
PR8 2JD Telephone +44(0)1704 569 824

PROFESSIONAL RESEARCH AGENCIES
Association of Genealogists and Record Agents (AGRA)
29 Badger’s close. Horsham. West Sussex, RH12 5RU

CENSUS INFORMATION
Public Record Office Ruskin Avenue. Kew, Richmond. Surrey. TW9 4DU
Telephone +44 (0)181 876 3444

INTERNATIONAL GENEALOGY INFORMATION
Family Tree Services 30 Eastfield Road. Peterborough. Cambridgeshire. PEI 4AN
Telephone +44 (0)1733 BPO 458

http://www.kitecom.co.uk/genealog/family.html

WILL and LAST TESTAMENT ENQUIRIES
Public Record Office Somerset House Strand. London. WC2 I1P
Telephone +44(0)1 81 876 3444

GENERAL RECORD INFORMATION
Metropolitan Archives Greater London Record Office 40 Northampton Road. London. EC 1R OHB


OTHER LINKS:

Ancestry www.ancestry.com
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Ancestry.com claims to be the largest database of lineage-linked genealogies on the internet - you will find its surname searcher pooping up on many other genealogy sites. You can add your own branch to the Ancestry World Tree of surnames, and upload photos of your ancestors into a sharing database. Though US based, the database includes early UK directories and lists from 1680-1830, as well as Canadian and European telephone and address listings. New databases added daily - recently the England Topographical Dictionary - including new UK broadsheet obituaries, but some are free only for a short time.
VERDICT: Become a Free or Premium member - the latter allows access to 600 million records, 2,500 databases (cheapest 'policy' is about $20).


Family History www.familyhistory.com
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A useful site for family research collaboration, Family History hosts over 100,000 family history message boards devoted to surnames and other genealogy related topics. Featuring 130,000 meassage boards, this site is used by people around the world for family calendaring, chat, family history features, messages and to display family photos. You can set up a family website here absolutely free - 'No knowledge of HTML is required!' - and, if eight or more people log in, you could win a prize. Around 300 countries and cities are listed in the site's database, along with the entire set of American states.
VERDICT: If you're looking for a long lost relative overseas, check here first.
Freebies for Genealogists www.jodenoy.clara.net/dealers/freebies.htm
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The page that can save the amateur genealogist time and money, you'll find links here to free online downloadable software that will speed up you research. For instance Superfasst 98, a multi-task accelerator, and Webcelerator, an Internet web page accelerator that resumes broken downloads. Web Ferret allows you to access multiple search engines at once, and there's other Ferret software such as InfoFerret which queries online databases and EmailFerret which searches for email addresses. Gedcom Viewer allows you to access Gedcom format files so you can organise your own interactive family tree without prior knowledge of HTML.
VERDICT: Find also links to genealogy sites that have good search engines and databases.
Genealogy Gateway www.gengateway.com
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This is one of the better organised and designed genealogy search engines on the web. You will find amongst the links some rather obscure ones which may be just what you need to track down a certain ancestor. The Ethnic Gateway is particularly useful since there are still major gaps on the web in this area. The surname search on this site goes two ways - either type in a name or click on the A-Z index if you are unsure of spelling. There's also the opportunity here to buy Genealogy 2000, the most up to date software in this field featuring fast website searches of over 50,000 records.
Easy to use resource.
VERDICT: Easy to use resource.
Joe's Genealogy www.zen.co.uk/home/page/joe.houghton
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Some of the best genealogy sites to learn from are homepages showing how others have conducted research and created their family trees. Joe Houghton, author of several best-selling guides on using computers and the Internet for genealogy, explains the basics for you to get to grips with search engines, databases, internet jargon, software and browsers, and using HTML to create your family tree website. Well selected links include sites offering the free downloadable software you'll need, plus where to go to search for e-mail addresses for anyone in the world.
VERDICT: Homepages are not normally reviewed here but this one is more helpful for beginners to genealogy than many of the big websites.
National Statistics Office www.statistics.gov.uk
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The Family Records Centre holds birth, adoption, marriage and death records from 1837 to the present day. Find out here the procedure for ordering certificates (email's a possibility). There is a helpful section on how to use the centre's Indexes, which in turn includes advice on tracing your family tree, and where to find material dating further back than 1837 (when records were confined to parish registers of local churches). You can also link to Family History in England and Wales and the Public Record Office at Kew to download further information.
VERDICT: Valuable site for all sorts of UK facts and figures, also includes interesting info 'themes' covering various aspects of life in Britain today.
Roots Web www.rootsweb.com
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The oldest and largest free genealogy site has been revamped recently and is now more search-friendly and one of the easiest to navigate genealogy sites. The database still covers a vast range of global geographical areas, and you can search surnames by soundex equivalents or alternate spellings, or by phonic symbols for foreign names. Find out here about the exciting WorldConnect Project - providing tools allowing you to upload, modify, link, and display your family tree to share with other researchers. Find out also how to link your own site to a research template.
VERDICT: Excellently organised site, provides a better global search engine and better organised and more useful links than most other genealogy sites.

 
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Copyright © 1996, Rob O'Gara : rmo@prestonian.co.uk : First issued 3rd March 1996.