Rosemary Lockie's Quick Reference Page
- “Who? What? Where?”
- Some queries can be answered very simply online, using one of the sites below. The sites themselves should be self-explanatory, so details of what to expect are omitted. Basically it's a list of my own favourite research sources.
A List of Topics Covered
If you are looking for:-
- A Person in the Past
“The Past” is after all what this site is about…
- FamilySearch - www.familysearch.org, or go direct to the Custom Search IGI Page.
- In the Napoleonic Wars - The Age of Nelson.
- During the Civil Registration period beginning 1837
- FreeBMD - FREE search of selected transcribed Civil Registration Indexes for England and Wales.
- findmypast.co.uk
(formerly 1837online.com) - FEE-PAYING search of Civil Registration and Census.
Also includes the Federation of Family History Societies Databases.
- Many Local Authorities have submitted their records to the central database for UK Burials and Cremations known as Deceased Online.
- If he or she died in either of the World Wars, try The Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
- A traveller on Britain's inland waterway network - Explore over 200 years of Waterways History (includes the former Virtual Waterways Archive).
- For Scotland, Scotland's People provides a search mechanism for Scots OPRs (Old Parochial Records), BMD Certificates and 1841-1901 Censuses. This is expensive, but so is a trip to Edinburgh if you don't live nearby!
- Leicester University's collection of Historical Directories (1766-1919) for England and Wales.
- Stablemates to FreeBMD above - FreeCEN and FreeREG - respectively, FREE Census and Parish Register databases.
- A member of the Royal Family, or the Peerage:
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page - Peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom.
- thePeerage.com - "A genealogical survey of the Peerage of Britain as well as the Royal Families of Europe".
- The more distant past - Chris Phillips Medieval English Genealogy web site.
- A member of the Clergy - The Clergy Database.
- What did your ancestor die of? At the time I checked this link, the site was temporarily unavailable, so here is a link to “Wayback Machine” Internet Archive versions of “Antiquus Morbus” - Glossary of Archaic Medical Terms, Diseases and Causes of Death.
- Free BMD searches in Australia - official records provided in NSW, WA, and Queensland:
- New South Wales
- Western Australia (choose “Family History” link)
- Queensland BMD Research
- A Person in London
I haven't knowingly got any ancestors who lived in London - have you?
- Calendars of documents preserved in the archives of the City of London at the Guildhall - Calendar of Plea and Memoranda Rolls.
- In Newgate Prison - online transcription of The Complete Newgate Calendar. Covers a period up to 1842, and records case histories leading to trial and imprisonment.
- The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1913
- A Place (in the UK)
- In the Present, searching Google Maps is so common as to be almost a cliche, so here are some alternatives:
- In the Past -
- Old Maps - OS Historical Maps (c.1854 - c.1969)
- National Library of Scotland - Map Images
- On GENUKI - The GENUKI Gazetteer
- Availability of records for a particular place - The Family History Library Catalogue
- Population studies in the past - the Online Historical Population Reports Website.
- A Book
- In Print - any online bookstore, such as Amazon.com, or if it's related to Family History, the Society of Genealogists' Bookshop.
- Out of Print - Library Hub Discover (the University Research Library Catalogue) is a good way of finding publishing details so you can order from your local library on ILL (Inter-Library Loan), but AbeBooks UK is a good source of second hand copies.
- International - OCLC WorldCat - the international equivalent of COPAC.
- Electronic Text
- Free eBooks - Project Gutenberg - wide variety of electronic texts (Chaucer, Dickens, &c.)
- Gentleman's Magazine Browse Journals (scanned images), or search the Gentleman's Magazine Subject Index
- Google Books - searchable extracts from modern and historical volumes.
- The Wayback Machine Text Archive.
- The Brigham Young University in the US hosts the Harold B. Lee Library Digital Collections.
- A Museum
- The National Waterways Museum (at Gloucester Docks)
- Originally the National Virtual Museum, now Museum Crush
- Hosted by Reading University - The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL)
- A Will
- National Archives Wills - Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) until 1858.
- Search post-1858 Wills and Probate - 1858 to present day.
- A UK Postcode
- A Church (in the UK)
- Many old churches are now listed buildings - search British Listed Buildings Online.
- The Church of England's finding aid - A Church Near You
- A multi-denominational UK Church Directory - "Find-a-Church"
- "A Thousand Years of English Churches" - The Churches Conservation Trust.
- The GENUKI Church Database
- Forbidden Marriages of the United Kingdom: Table of Kindred & Affinity.
- St Justin, fourth Archbishop of Canterbury (624-627): The Society of Archbishop Justus.
- Church Plans Online - images from the ICBS archive searchable at Lambeth Palace Library.
- A Public House, or Inn
- Pubs, Inns, Taverns and Breweries of the Midlands
-
Pub Explorer Guide
Ironically, the Public House may often be found next to the Village Church! - Geoff Sandels' Gloucestershire Pubs.
- John Crossling's History of Warwickshire Pubs.
- The Pub History Society.
- A (Disused) Railway Station
- Closed Railway Stations in the UK - details of Disused Stations.
- How Much is it Worth?
What is the equivalent today of (say) 3d (“a threpenny bit”) in 1783?
- The Purchasing Power of British Pounds, from 1270 to present - Measuring Worth.
- UK Weather
- The home of UK Weather Forecasting - The Met Office.
- Weather Forecast by the BBC
- 10-day forecasts provided by The Weather Channel
- Just for Code Monkeys
Call me a programmer? Darn, like plumbers, where are they when you need one? However I suspect the term is at worst outdated and at best ambigous, so I decided on “Code Monkey”, since I enjoy coding applications (“apps” to bring the term right up to date) more than planning or designing. Here are one or two sites I've found useful in developing the applications I use to assist in managing my websites.
- Have you ever asked yourself what GitHub is, but more importantly, should you click on links that take you there? I have … learn about it safely via GitHub - Wikipedia.
- Yet Another Code Site - smart advice to accompany Borland's C++ Builder, the Borland Visual Component Library (VCL), and related Microsoft Windows API issues.
- The Internet Component Suite (ICS) from Overbyte Freeware, by Françoise Piette.
- Mike Lischke's Delphi image loader library from GraphicEx (on GitHub).
- Filemon and ProcessExplorer from
Windows Sysinternals.
(software developed independently, adopted by Microsoft) - SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language) parser, conforming to International Standard ISO 8879 - James Clark's 'SP'.
I have found all of the above code sites extremely useful - thanks guys! :) - Web-Related and E-mail Links
- Check webpages for correct HTML syntax using the HTML Validation Service, and/or W3C CSS Validation Service.
- Hate Spam (Unsolicited Email)? Report it to SpamCop. SpamCop techniques aim to stop it at source!
- If you're a web page developer, W3Schools Online Web Tutorials are an invaluable resource.
- Check for broken links on your own web site using XENU's Link Sleuth ™.
- Open Source software - SourceForge - a wide range of software, utilities, &c.
- ‘Myth Busters’
These websites offer a return to sanity if you're feeling brainwashed into believing everything you read online…
-
The Phrase Finder. “What's the origin of that phrase?”
Discover that ‘Dead Ringer’ doesn't mean what you thought it meant… - Quack Watch - ‘Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions’.
- “Snopes” - Urban Legends Reference Pages - for example “A month before Kennedy was assassinated he was in Marilyn Monroe…”
- The Skeptic's Dictionary.
… not that I'm suggesting they're necessary as an antidote to this page... nonono, of course not - hehe! -
The Phrase Finder. “What's the origin of that phrase?”