The Quest for your English Ancestors

Learn how to trace the officers and men who served in Britain’s Royal Navy, find information about their ships. Research through online, original and print resources, with case studies.

Do you know the difference between a Peculiar Baptist and an Anabaptist? What types of records the Quakers kept? What the Puritans believed? Understanding the background to and the beliefs of the multitude of non-conformist churches can give us an insight into our ancestors' lives. Learning what records the various groups kept can give us a new lead for our research, or prevent us looking for records that never existed in the first place. This talk will not only tackle those questions, but also give a history of many of the non-conformist churches that existed in England and Wales.

Learn all about the key resources available for researching ancestors in the counties of Cumberland and Westmorland. Discover the key archives covering these counties and how to use their catalogues and other resources. Find out where records can be found online both within the main commercial websites and other sites. Learn about key historical events that may impact your research in the ‘Lake Counties’. Investigate where else you can get help for researching here such as published resources and local and family history societies. At the end of this talk, you will be set up for starting your research on your Cumberland and Westmorland ancestors. Note that the talk assumes you have already watched ‘Introduction to County Research in England’.

Discover the building blocks for researching in the English counties. This talk provides an overview of the key facts you need to know to start researching your English ancestors. Unravel why counties have come and gone with changing boundaries and different types of administrative entities. By understanding which records are stored at national or county level and some of the laws that influenced their collation, you will then be able to effectively concentrate on looking at the specific counties your ancestors came from. Learn about the finding aids and helpful resources to ensure you are set up to take a journey through English research supported by our English Research Series.

This talk looks at free online sources that are often overlooked in preference for the main commercial websites. It is focused on English and Welsh resources. The talk gives ideas of where else you could go to expand your hunt for your ancestors’ life story.

Regular sailing schedules between Liverpool and North America began in 1818, and during the 19th century Liverpool became the primary port for emigrants from the British Isles, northern Europe and Russia to North America, Australia, and the rest of the British Empire. Learn how and why this came about, understand what the experience was like going to, in, and leaving from Liverpool. Learn how to identify, access, and use the records of the port and shipping that are available.

The probate system in England and Wales changed significantly in 1858. Learn how the English probate system worked before and after that change, see what records are available and why they are of value. Learn tips and tools for procedures which will simplify the search process, whether the ancestor’s location in England is known or unknown.

Lloyd’s Shipping Lists, and the allied publications are the go-to resources for information about merchant shipping over 100 tons worldwide since 1696. Lloyd’s of London created its first news sheet in 1696. Its successor Lloyd’s List issued in 1734 was a weekly journal of news about ships arriving in English and Irish ports. The New Lloyd’s List ran as a rival beginning in 1769, and replaced it 1773, dropping New after 1788. The frequency of publication changed to daily with annual indexes, advertisements were introduced in 1854. Lloyd’s Weekly Shipping Index began publication in 1880. Further changes were made especially during WWI and WWI with additional records being created. Shipping records are still being produced. The Lists created by Lloyd’s are the go-to place for shipping over 100 tons worldwide to get information on the vessels, their masters, and their owners. The presentation will show examples of the different records and how to interpret and understand the information contained. We will look at what is online, and where to look when not online. Plus, once identified where can one look for more information about the ships and the people involved.

Every family has them, ancestors who worked on the land. How can we find out more about them, the farms where they worked and the lives that they led? This session covers a range of sources, many of them under-used, which will help to shed light on the working lives of our rural British ancestors.