Free UK Genealogy Resources
The British Empire at its peak spanned the entire globe with its various colonies, dominions, mandates protectorates and the territories. The British Empire was a superpower for over a century and nearly a half a billion people were under the empire’s governance. Because of this, people throughout the world who are tracing their British Empire ancestors will at some point need to access records located in the United Kingdom. Below is a list of the best free UK genealogy related websites.
Free UK Genealogy a project that has been transcribing the Birth, Marriage and Death indexes of England and Wales since 1998. In addition to the indexes, the Free UK Genealogy project is also transcribing historic Parish Registers and 19th Century Censuses.
The Proceedings of the Old Bailey website contains documents and transcriptions of the criminal trials held at London's central court from 1674-1913
The site provides access to the parish records of Lancashire. This is an ongoing volunteer project. The site has a “What's New?” section where you can find out what is happening with the project and what new parishes have been added. New information is being added on regular bases. If your family records are not their now, they will be in the not too distant future.
According to the free Scotlands Family website, it is “the one-stop shop for all do-it-yourself Scottish family historians.
A fantastic site with much in the way of free genealogy related resources
The Family History UK website features United Kingdom family trees, a community forum, and surname requests. The site is a great starting point to see if your UK surname has a relevant family tree already online. These trees may or may not contain documentation so you will need to verify the information they contain. Though the front page of the site indicates it is temporary unavailable, you can still access all of the trees, the forum and the surname requests.
The Family Search England and Wales page consists of 53 indexed collections and 28 image collections that are not indexed, but easily searchable. This free site also has collections for Scotland, Ireland, Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey.
The next blog will be on UK subscription databases.
Kim
