Authored by Clare Connolly.  Clare is one of a team of Ancestry.co.uk camera operators who have been working on the digitisation of the new Manchester Parish Registers, 1541-1985.

We’ve just launched onsite the new Manchester Parish Records, 1541-1985. These crucial records are the result of months of work behind the scenes to digitise the original registers. I can give you an insight into that work from my point of view as one of the camera operators.

The registers are held by Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives which is the appointed Diocesan Record Office for the area. The registers date right back to Tudor times, and consist of baptism, marriage and burial records.

The role of the camera operator involves entering details about each register onto the Ancestry.co.uk software, including the name of the church and date range covered. Then the register is photographed from cover to cover, with the images saved directly to the computer.

Many of the volumes are fragile due to their age, and careful handing is essential to prevent damage. We use book supports and archival weights to protect the documents and hold pages in place. The camera height can be adjusted depending on the size of the volume – obviously the key is to make sure the writing is in focus. It’s important to get as clear an image as possible as some of the ink has faded and handwriting styles vary greatly.

Different types of register reveal different information. Most of the early registers grouped baptisms, marriages and burials in the same volume.  As time went on more information was recorded; the mother’s name was more likely to be entered on baptism records, the parishes of both the bride and groom appeared in marriage registers and the age of the deceased and sometimes cause of death were noted in burials.  Then in 1813 pre-printed baptism and burial registers were introduced, recording details of where people lived and their professions.

These professions are one of the most interesting features of the parish registers, and they often reveal the development of local industries. Greater Manchester is well known for its manufacturing, transport and textiles heritage and trades relating to these industries were commonly recorded. For example, spinner, carder, dyer and spindle maker were common occupations for people working in the cotton industry.

When we’ve finished the digitisation process, we send the photographs of the registers to be transcribed, and then the images and the information they hold can be put online. Hopefully you all enjoy them, and find some useful information about your family.

Clare Connolly is one of a team of Ancestry.co.uk camera operators who have been working on the digitisation of the new Manchester Parish Registers, 1541-1985.

©Images reproduced with courtesy of the Manchester City Council

It’s a family history conundrum. You don’t like to imagine your ancestors having difficult lives. But every time they hit tricky times they seem to be really well documented, and provide some of your most fascinating discoveries.

This is true of Poor Law records. It’s definitely the case with criminal records. And it crops up again with our new divorce records.

Civil Divorce Records, 1858-1911  are legal records that were made as part of each divorce case. They provide a blow-by-blow account of all the claims and counter-claims that led up to the split. For example, you could find out exactly where and when your great-grand-uncle started an affair – and even who with!

On top of that, the records include an entire history of the marriage before it all went wrong. This could include the date and place of the wedding, details of any children, and even the couple’s different addresses.

That means that not only can you read about your family’s scandals, but you can use all that extra detail to find more of their birth, marriage and death records, and build up your timeline of their lives.

It almost leaves you wishing more of your ancestors had marriage problems!

Search the divorce records

See all our birth, marriage & death records

Back at Who Do You Think You Are? Live last February, I saw a perfect example of how much someone’s family history can mean to them.

A lady told me that she was struggling to find any record of her granddad before his marriage around 1930. I tried looking in the usual places – censuses, city directories, military records – but I couldn’t find anything either.

So, I suggested that he could have left the country. I introduced her to our overseas passenger lists and after a bit of digging we found him in a Canadian passenger list at just 10 years old. There were all kinds of details on the record, and we were surprised to see that although his ‘occupation’ in England was ‘scholar’, he was planning to become a ‘farm labourer’ in Canada.

We then noticed that all the other passengers on the list were also young children, intended for equally physical work. We realised that her granddad was a British Home Child.

This was an emotional discovery. She didn’t know a huge amount about the Home Children, but she knew enough to realise that he had probably had a difficult life both before and after this journey, and may well have lost touch completely with the rest of the family.

Thankfully the story had a happy ending. We knew that Granddad was back in England in time to marry in the ‘30s, and sure enough we were able to spot his voyage home in the UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960.

This tale shows the value of passenger lists, and other migration records. As well as answering puzzles in our families’ pasts, they often reveal crucial turning points for our ancestors. Uprooting to a new country would have shaped the rest of their lives, and perhaps had repercussions for the rest of the family right up to the present day.

If I was doing the same search today, it would be quicker and easier. Our brand new release, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960, shows more than 15 million travellers as they left the UK.

As well as personal details like addresses and occupations, it tells you the port your relatives left from, the country they were headed to, and even the ship they sailed on. So, it would have been relatively simple for me to spot Granddad in those records, then pick up his arrival in Canada.

What we found completely changed how my friend from WDYTYA? Live saw her grandfather, and she was desperate to get home and share her discovery with her mum. Hopefully our new records will help many of you make similarly emotional and important findings about your own families.

 Authored by Russell James

Authored by Russell James.

Most of  you will have noticed that we released a new record collection this week: Warwickshire Occupational and Quarter Session Records, 1662-1866. I immediately took a special interest in this collection, as not only did I grow up in the Warwickshire town of Rugby, but generations of my mother’s family also hailed from the area, around Wolston and Ryton-Upon-Dunsmore.

My enthusiasm only grew when I took a look through the collection. The records were created by the Quarter Sessions. These are probably best known as legal courts, but they also had a vital role in local government, overseeing various parts of public life. It’s these brushes with ‘ordinary’ people that brought about our new records.

Many of the documents cover occupations. There are licences for gamekeepers and boat owners, and notes of rewards paid to farmers who grew flax. But the records that really caught my eye were the letters from printing press owners to the Clerk of the Peace. As a journalist and writer myself, it was fascinating to look back at the beginnings of the publishing industry in my home county.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, anyone who wanted to do any sort of printing had to write and seek permission. If they were deemed right and proper, the Clerk issued a certificate. If you were caught publishing any printed material without a certificate, you were fined the princely sum of 20 pounds!

So, any wannabe publishers were keen to remain on the right side of the Clerk. In our modern era of press scandals and controversy, it’s incredible to read these subservient, almost groveling letters.

Were your ancestors among the publishers, farmers, gamekeepers or boat owners in this collection?

Search now and find out

See all our occupation records

‘Take me back to beautiful England
& the grey, damp filthiness of ages,
fog rolling down behind the mountains,
& on the graveyards, and dead sea-captains.’ Lyrics from ‘Last Living Rose’ by P J Harvey.

Discovering your family history can be an exciting experience and researching one’s ancestor’s masters’ certificates is one such journey to embark on. Known officially as master-mariners they were also referred to in non-official sources as a captain and were qualified to be in charge of a merchant vessel. Master-mariners were issued with a certificate to prove that they were officially acting in that capacity.

Master’s certificate for Edward Smith, captain of RMS Titanic. Repro ID: E5388 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

The records began in 1845 when the Board of Trade introduced a voluntary examination, for seamen interested in owning a certificate of service. The examination system became compulsory for foreign trade in 1850 and for home trade in 1854. When the certificate was issued to the mariner a copy was filed at the office of the Board of Trade. It is this partial and incomplete record series which is housed at the National Maritime Museum. Records are available from 1845 to 1927 digitally on-line for the first time as a comprehensive search engine at Ancestry.co.uk.

You can find out from the certificate the date the examinations were passed and the mariner’s signature. Perhaps the most useful document though is the original application put in by the mariner for the examination and kept with the office copy. These can provide more personal details, such as his date and place of birth, home address, whether he already held a certificate, whether previous applications for a certificate had failed and why, and details of voyages. In the majority of cases, applications provide a record of every ship on which the applicant had previously served.

Front of application accompanying Captain Edward Smith’s extra master’s certificate. Repro ID: E5390 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Back of application accompanying Captain Edward Smith’s extra master’s certificate. Repro ID: E5391 ©National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

Famous sea captains can be found in the records including master-mariner of the Titanic, Edward Smith (14102) who failed the navigation component of the exam in his first sitting! There are also the certificates of Robert Falcon Scott (76670), Ernest Shackleton (028219), Joseph Conrad (08361), Richard Woodget (89120), captain of the Cutty Sark and Arthur Rostron (022747) who in the Carpathia, heroically came to the aid of the sinking Titanic.

The search can be continued by finding out more about the vessels they served on (provided by the application). Many sources available in the Caird Library at the National Maritime Museum can assist in revealing more.

Mike Bevan is an Assistant Archivist at the National Maritime Museum.

Occupation records are some of our most popular collections. It’s not surprising really; learning about your ancestors’ careers can really help paint a picture of how they lived their lives, and what sort of people they were.

That’s particularly true about our latest addition. Masters Certificates, 1850-1927 reveals more than 250,000 hardy souls who spent their working lives at sea. The records were created when each merchant sailor qualified as a master or mate.

As you might expect (or hope!), before anyone was put in charge of a ship they had to prove they had extensive experience at sea. That means there are reams of documents in this collection charting each sailor’s entire career.

As an example, I searched for Edward John Smith the famous captain of the Titanic. Just his full name and birth year (1850) are enough to bring up four obvious matches – a quick check on Wikipedia shows that Hanley in Staffordshire is the correct birthplace, so it looks like we have the right man.

The reason there are four matches is that Smith gained more qualifications as his career progressed. The earliest certificate, from 1871, shows he became a Second Mate. Then he quickly progressed to First Mate and Master, before eventually gaining the esteemed status of Extra Master in 1888.

But the certificates themselves aren’t the only records in this collection. Like our WWI Service Records each match is actually a bundle of related papers. To browse them all, view the actual record images, then use the left and right arrows in the top-right corner to move forwards and backwards.

In the Titanic captain’s case, you’ll also find a declaration that provides his address, date and place of birth, and signature; an application form completed in his own handwriting, showing how much he paid to apply; and best of all, a career history listing every ship he’d served on, together with the dates he worked and his rank.

If your ancestors worked on water, you could find similarly extensive details of their careers. Search now

Or, see all our occupation records

Abandon all hope, ye who enter Ancestry.co.uk today. There be pirates about, and they be thirsty for your blood.

Actually, strictly speaking, we’re hoping that our pirates already share your blood. These scurvy dogs – who appear as part of nine new Dorset record collections we’re launching today – are real historical people who could be your relatives.

Piracy was rife off England’s south coast right up into the 18th century. Dorset’s coves, caves and sandy beaches were the perfect hiding place for buccaneers and brigands and their ill-gotten loot. That means you stand a good chance of spotting these seadogs in our three new criminal collections.

Whether your family’s black sheep committed their crimes on land or sea, our Calendars of Prisoners, 1854-1904 take you back to their trials – and often include detailed accounts of their offences. Then our Transportation Records, 1730-1842 and Prison Registers, 1782–1901 let you uncover how they coped with their punishment.

But our new records aren’t all about burglars and bandits. There’s plenty of opportunity to learn about ordinary law-abiding folk as well – and gain a rare insight into their everyday lives.

Our Jury Lists, 1719–1922 reveal the very people who upheld the law, and our Militia Records, 1757–1860 remember those who defended the community. Meanwhile, our Land Tax Returns, 1780–1832 provide a virtual census of everybody in the local area.

See all our Dorset collections

The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the best-known events in British history. Indeed, the disaster has become so shrouded in myth and legend that it’s easy to forget that it directly affected over 2,000 real people.

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the accident, we’ve released five new record collections that reveal the ship’s passengers and crew. You can discover where these men, women and children lived, how they worked and their future plans before their lives were so suddenly interrupted.

The most important of our new collections is the official Titanic passenger list. This tells you the names, ages and occupations of the people who got their hands on the most famous tickets in maritime history. It even provides the country where any permanent emigrants were intending to set up home.

The other side of the coin is the staff that sailed the ship, managed its operations, and served the illustrious passengers. Our crew records reveal their addresses, nationalities, and the duties they performed. Look out for notes about employees who were ill or didn’t show up – surely some of the luckiest near misses in history.

Of course, the sad truth is that 1,517 souls lost their lives when the Titanic went down. Our death registers list them together with their ages, last residences and occupations. We also have photographs of some of their memorials, plus an index of the bodies recovered.

Search the Titanic Collection 

Few of us are actually related to anybody who boarded the Titanic. However, most families do have members who travelled the seas. You’re more likely to find your emigrant and immigrant ancestors in our other passenger lists from the UK, USA, Australia and other key countries.

If you are looking for more information about Titanic passengers, you may find that they were on other boats before – or even after – their most famous journey.

Search our immigration and travel records

Speaking of lives before the Titanic, you’ll be able to find most of the passengers and crew on the 1911 Census. Taken almost exactly a year before the ship set out from Southampton, this will tell you where and how they were living – and with whom.

Search the 1911 Census

Avid blogger and lover-of-all-things-vintage Sarah Hurley came to us recently, letting us know that she was on the verge of starting to research her family history, using Ancestry.co.uk, and was going to document her journey into her past on her blog.  We were intrigued! We wanted to know more because, not only do we always love hearing about people’s genealogical findings, but we are always interested in hearing from people new to Ancestry.  
 
Now, we’re inviting you to join us on Sarah’s journey into her past as she encounters her ancestors for the first time, stumbles into brick walls and discovers lurking skeletons.  She will be scrapbooking and documenting everything along the way, as well as sharing her tips and tricks, so you can follow along with your own family history. 

All this will be on her blog – www.sarahhurley.com. To read her first blog post about it click here and her next one is due up in a few days so stay tuned!
 
Happy hunting Sarah!

The Ancestry.co.uk team will be on-hand to answer your England & Wales 1911 Census-related questions LIVE on our Facebook fan page – www.facebook.com/AncestryUK – next Tuesday at 10am GMT.

Whether it’s a question about how to search the latest census available to the public or advice on using them in conjunction with other historical content and Ancestry records to help further your research, all you need to do is the following simple steps:

1. Go to www.facebook.com/AncestryUK
2. ‘Like’ our page
3. Look out for the message on the page wall alerting you that we’re ready for questions

 We will answer all the questions we can from 10-11am and look forward to seeing you there!

If you’re passionate about family history then join the family history conversation at www.facebook.com/AncestryUK and follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AncestryUK for the latest in Ancestry news.