Researching London ancestors

A couple of years ago, I had no knowledge of how to search for London ancestors as I didn’t have any as far as I knew. But recently, with DNA assistance, I now have a few lines through dad’s finally found father.

As tonight’s #ANZAncestryTime chat was about resources for London research, I could actually mention some sources I have used.

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What general resources have you found the most helpful or what are your favourite resources for researching ancestors from London and its surroundings?

I’m hoping to gain some inspiration on ancestors who lived or moved through London.

Looking forward to hints about ways to find my London ancestor pre civil registration when I have no idea of location

Research sites I’ve used include Genuki, Pallots Index, Family Search, Ancestry and census info as a guide to places of birth. Booth’s poverty maps are great – if you have a specific address

I have found the London Metropolitan Archives very useful bit.ly/3w8Efns and also the London Encyclopedia which I purchased recently

I struggle with having any confidence that I have found the correct birth or marriage when there’s a city of a bazillion people

Yes, it can be difficult especially if researching a common name … So many Browns in North London

Censuses, directories and parishes records! Huguenot society for sure too but also French/international collections at @MyHeritage because a lot were French or Belgian/Dutch emigrants or refugees 🤩

Because I focus on 1800s and early 1900s I find the census and church records most useful for the basic starting point for my London ancestors. They moved to NZ and Essex so I can follow they with the census to Essex

For London #FamilyHistory there are some excellent Family History Societies who offer resources, talks and publications! There is an excellent guide by @LWMFHS lwmfhs.org.uk/area-covered

LMA have a great website with many rabbit holes to disappear down. I could easily spend hours there

Westminster Archives would be another great place to research in person and the Society of Genealogists. And London Lives londonlives.org

Re London parish registers and the LMA search.lma.gov.uk/scripts/mwimai…

I don’t have any ancestors anywhere near London, and looking at my DNA matches tree, the location is mentioned only 17 times.

the @LdnMetArchives has a number of useful guides to its resources although record sets like Land Tax Returns which I find useful for 1770-1830 are often held in Borough Libraries. So much of the LMA data is now online which is really helpful.

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Do you use London specific resources? Are these available online? Is it a good place to visit for research?

Yes – mostly. I find maps very useful too and books e.g. A guide to London’s churches by Mervyn Blatch and Tracing Your London Ancestors by Jonathan Oates

Spent a few days at LMA when I was in London many years ago. So much to look at.

Can you tell us a bit about the London Encyclopaedia?

It’s one of those wonderful books that you can dip in and out of. The best kind of reference book. It’s a massive volume – 1116pages and covers anything and everything – buildings, people, organizations, streets, embankments, turnpikes etc etc

I have found it enormously helpful when tackling #52ancestorsin52weeks on my blog this year. I have a few families who originated from London.

LMA cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/h…

Yes it was great when my cousin was in Hammersmith. Plus she was very interested so we visited national archives and LMA. Found some wonderful and totally huge maps that were impossible to look at the middle sections without both of us rolling it up together.

A blog about London history via walking tours livinglondonhistory.com

some background on 1890’s London , glad I wasn’t living there then npr.org/2015/03/12/392…

Just bought an Unlock the Past book on London and Middlesex family history resources online from Gould Genealogy by Alan Stewart

no London ancestors that I know of but looked in our catalogue, quite a few resources librarycat.org/lib/CNGHRG/sea… may or may not be useful

I found Robsons Trade Directory, as part of Ancestry’s London City Directories collection, useful in placing a bricklayer ancestor in 1819. The occupation tied in with his convict indent & newspaper notices entered by family trying to track him in NSW.

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In a large city ensuring you have the right person can be hard. What suggestions or techniques do you use that can help? What about pre-census and pre-civil registration? Or dealing with people and families with common first and surnames?

I think perhaps sometimes you may never know although if they had an unusual occupation that might help. I guess I look for common names in siblings or common churches for baptisms. But sometimes it’s just like looking for the proverbial needle…

Coming to terms with never knowing is difficult Alex. As family historians we want to know it all

We do want to follow them back but when it comes to London I throw my hands up and give up.

Just remembered when I started I had to use elimination to get down to a more manageable list before expanding out to look for other records. Found my great GM this way. This technique required sometime, logic and keeping good records.

Looking for consistencies across records e.g. other family members, occupation etc.

This is my major conundrum: how can you be sure pre-civil Reg and if they die before census? Do they move between parishes? Also married in London but lived elsewhere. Seems impossible when names are not unusual. Tips much appreciated.

Usually I look to a family’s children’s names to see if I can detect a pattern for the earlier generation eg why I’ve “decided” my William Partridge’s maternal grandfather was likely William Thompson.

I have an ancestor who was a journeyman carpenter but the marriage records labourer. All else “fits”.

clues for my Partridge family (then living in Gloucestershire): Eliza (mother) and son William both shown as born Westminster on 1851 census, daughter shown as St Pancras. My husband’s ancestors married in London, lived in Notts. she was from East Sussex

I have looked for wills and letters of administration as they will give names of people involved and addresses often.

I got a great will earlier in the year. It has a row of houses in London and my grandmother left different ones to different children. I just have to find it as I forgot to file it on my computer properly.

I think luck has a lot to do with getting the correct persons. I was lucky to have families that used unusual second names & less common maiden names reused down the generations. 3 cheers for Freeborn, Collis, Myhill, Frith, Grout, Tarbet & more.

Finding my 3x g grandfather Thomas Jones in London pre civil reg has been impossible, not knowing his location

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What maps and mapping sites have helped you understand London and its surrounds? Do you find ancestors relocate and return to London? Any ancestors with interesting capital-based roles? In parliament, for example?

I tend to order maps from Gould Genealogy as I find it quite difficult looking at maps online. My Dad’s old AA guide to London from the 1960s came in quite handy when I was doing research recently ! It doesn’t have just maps but also guides to churches et al.

My dad’s side of the family were mainly from London, Surrey, Kent area so comparing google maps with the poverty maps and ordnance maps from Scotland site have been great.

National Library of Scotland has some digitised London info.

I sometimes use Google maps to check out the relative proximity, and distance, between 2 places that an ancestor has lived. However, my Brown line has pretty much been in the Tottenham/Edmonton area for generations and generations

I often use street view on google. Even though it is fairly recent I find it gives a different perspective. I had a go at layering a while back and stripping back to older versions can be enlightening.

When writing up my biographies, I try to include addresses as well and hope they are in close proximity. My great grandmother suewyatt.edublogs.org/2021/12/31/flo…

Another biography showing mapping great grandfather suewyatt.edublogs.org/2021/12/11/wil…

I have a family member who was a grenadier guard. One of his duties was Gold Stick IN Waiting to the King. Gold Stick is a bodyguard

I was lucky my ancestors were coachmen and boot shop managers or similar and were easy to follow through censuses

Readers: What sources have you found useful when researching London ancestors?

Apps for family history

Thoroughly enjoyable chat tonight with #ANZAncestryTime – apps to make life easier when doing family history.

JESHOOTS-com / Pixabay

Share apps for photos, digital images, storage, scanning etc: favourites, alternatives, features, tips, value.

I only use the software on my computer for my work. I scan with Karapa on my ancient scanner, take photos with my Oppo phone or Panasonic camera, and organise with FastStone Image Viewer. Used to use Picasa

I used to so love Picasa and mourn its absence greatly. Reckon I lost a lot of photos in the transition.

#photomyne @Photomyne has been my personal favourite. It does it all and is still an expanding app.

the best app I use is ora-extension.com/en/ora-setting…

I need something to organise my photos! For creating images, I’ve used Canva, for charts LucidChart, and SnagIt for annotating screenshots. Image editing I use GraphicConverter

Lots of Google, Adobe and Microsoft apps can be used for all sorts of #familyhistory tasks Google Keep and Microsoft Office Lens a couple of current favourites. Microsoft Office Lens Another scanner, documents, cards, photos to pdf etc.etc


Apps for kids recommended by common sense media commonsensemedia.org/lists/photogra…

For photo scanning, Google Photoscan I found to be quite useful. Storing… Google Photos hands down.

My FH source images and photos also automatically connect to Dropbox via my Reunion desktop software and the Reunion Touch app on the iPad. Means the images are viewable on the road via the app.

Unsplash for free images and Pic Collage for making collages of images

To store my photos I use Photos from Apple. They are synced through the cloud to other devices so available when out and about. For my sources images I store them in a file connected to my tree on my computer.

Pixabay images are searched when writing my blog summaries. includes the image credit automatically

I mainly use Canva, Pixabay, Pic Collage, Unsplash and Shutterstock for blog images

a freeware alternative to Photoshop that I discovered at a SLQ workshop years ago is GIMP. I use Google Photos and Dropbox mostly for image management and sharing.

I use Flickr on my ipad to collect all my photos and group in albums

photos: Flickr from archives and for some of my own. Shutterstock for paid images for presentations or blog; Pixabayfor free images. Canva for graphics; pic collage for collages.

For scanning I mostly use my iPhone with the Scannable app from Evernote. It straightens up the page to a rectangle even if you take the image on an odd angle. Only for iPhones and iPads available at the Apple app store

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Apps for place research, eg mapping, cemeteries, etc. AND/OR: recording or writing family history, note-taking, presentations, blogging etc.

Use my Firefox browser for working on websites, often up to 20 tabs open, and my MS Pro at the same time if I need to have information up while I’m working on @WikiTreers profiles.

Glad to read that I am not the only one with loads of tabs open. I can go to multiple windows with groups of tabs open in each one.

use LibreOffice for writing reports, preparing spreadsheets, etc. I have my many trees in Legacy. I manage my thousands of files with ZTreeWin. I backup with ToolKit. I email through Thunderbird.

between #Evernote @evernote my camera and map widgets, I am good to go! My PDF app stores my research notes. (Yellow highlights reminds me what I still need to locate, when I am on my fieldtrips.).

Hmm… place research – Google Maps and Google MyMaps. I tend to create presentations and everything on my PC. I don’t like doing those things on phones/tablets.

I agree Daniel. I don’t use a phone for much. I use my large keyboard and my large touchscreen to work. A phone is too small except reading FaceBook, emails, etc.

Am back using Scrivener for writing blog posts, assignments, research reports, etc. So useful being able to pull in resources, and split screen handy for transcribing documents. Have GenMap for mapping data, put Windows VM on my Mac especially to run it.

Scrivener’s great! I think I am finally over my footnote formatting disaster that occurred during my studies – took me a year to recover from that LO

oh yes footnotes can be the bane of your life if you haven’t got the right program or know how to use it properly.

I have used google MyMaps to create some family maps. Here is an example. Can attached a story and images accessible by clicking the numbers or side panel. Usually good but can go a bit wonky. google.com/maps/d/u/0/edi…

have used Soundcloud and voicememos for interviews and then added to my blog

I’ve used wavepad to record oral history interviews and it worked quite well.

Audacity is free and open source and easy to use (I use it to edit my podcast episodes for THB and my own…) Not sure about Soundcloud

The WordPress App really is great. When I was in Spain, I posted every day for 6 weeks and managed comments, all through the app.

I did an oral history via my Evernote app once and this recorded clearly with no extra mics. For note writing I use the notes app on the iPad. Blogging apps: WordPress Apps that links back to my blogs on the server. Lets you manage comments too.

I use WordPress App for my blog, Billion Graves and Find A Grave for cemeteries

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Apps for storing FH research, data, research and your tree. Preferences and why? Multiple choices? Which simplify (or assist) collaboration and sharing?

I use multiple folders on my D drive with subfolders which I can access through ZTreeWin to store photos, certificates, notes. spreadsheets, etc. Backupped to two PHDs. I exchange information through email or Messenger. My work is on @WikiTreers

mentioned in A2 with my camera and PDF widgets/apps, as long as I remember to update/ upload my notes, is all I need

I use Reunion to store my tree offline, but have other apps to produce reports and charts. Excel for data, Scrivener for project work. Endless notebooks that I need to index/transcribe at some point <- need an app for that!

try out using voice to text for all these note books. I have given up typing tonight and are actually saying my posts.

I use the ReunionTouch app on my iPad lots including when I need to check out a birthday coming up as I can never remember them. For transcribing try testing out voice to text options. Double tap fn key the Mac to start, once on in sys pref.

Have also used animoto to create slideshows with and without background music

I have been a long time user of Family Tree Maker but am now trying to switch to Family Historian. I want to make more use of/give SVG Family Tree generator a good workout for creating family tree graphics on my blog. I love Coggle for mind-mapping.

Thanks for bringing up mind mapping Alex. It’s a great tool. I used to use it constantly but not so much lately. For no reason. Just…time!

I have used bubbl.us for mind mapping especially with DNA matches and creating thruline type chart

storing info: notes Evernote, Google docs and sheets, desktop Word, Excel and Powerpoint and online in MyHeritage, Ancestry and FamilySearch Google stuff set to offline too so can be all backed up to 2 external hard drives. family heritage albums in Flickr

Office programs extensively. Evernote is backup of FH emails. Google docs for photos; Dropbox for presentations etc and ready access; OneDrive similarly for access

I have the @Ancestry app. It connects to one of my trees so reflected changes made on the web or synced from Family Tree Maker. You can log into other trees I think.

Yes you can access multiple trees but it is a bit problematic if you want to frequently move between trees

I really like the Ancestry App. It’s great to always have my tree on my phone wherever I go.

Trees on iPad only with ReunionTouch. @FamilySearch App, @MyHeritage, @Ancestry on iPhone as well. I do frequently use a web browser on my iPad for consistency the interface with desktop use. Apps though are better on a phone being mobile responsive.

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Apps for anything and everything: learning, time keeping, mind mapping, charts, etc. The ones you cannot do without and why.

Zotero for keeping track of useful resources and the Chrome extension Zotero Connector that grabs the details with one click.

Spreadsheets for pretty much everything – Research logs, Timelines, BDM certificates. Genome Mate Pro for DNA matches, DNA Painter

Librarything for books owned. Easy to scan in bar code. I use GoodReads for the books read. This applies to both FH and general reading though LT is more for my reference library.

Books owned are in a large spreadsheet arranged in the order they are on the shelves by bookcase and room. Couldn’t find them otherwise as I have moved several times – know where they were in the last house

Libib for tracking my genealogy/history books, so I don’t buy a book I already have.

If I could only pick one app then the one I would pick is more of an extension for Firefox. It’s called web developer and it’s the first thing I download whenever I get a new computer and set up Firefox.

I confess to still using pen and paper to keep myself organized and when I get frustrated at not getting through my To Do list, I use my own version of the Pomodoro technique, allocating 1/2 an hour to each task just to make some progress on them.

Ah, I have the FocusTime app to use that technique. I find it helps, mostly 😉

You work 25 minutes on a task, then have 5 min break. Can help if you have trouble focussing, or easily distracted. Can be annoying if you get stuck into something, and then “have” to stop. So sometimes I don’t 😉 Customisable, can change time settings

If using wordpress, here is how to embed some media help.edublogs.org/user-guide/med…

For language translation I’ve used Reverso app. Feedly to monitor blog posts by others, voice memos when travelling or otherwise as a reminder. Facebook to stay in touch with genimates and FH & DNA groups.

Spreadsheets. I could not survive without them. All my data goes into them. I have some with 50 years of data. Ask a question, I go to a spreadsheet. Maybe I should start writing about the information.

yes I love doing timelines for ancestors on Spreadsheets. Makes it much easier.

DNA matches from every site I’m on. The ones above 20cM mainly but I do put up others that I am looking at. BDMs too

I keep virtually everything on Google Drive – spreadsheets, slideshows, documents, photos etc Can then be accessed on any computer world wide or on ipad or laptop

Great comments:

Time seems to be the issue that challenges most family historians in many areas of their research. It’s my biggest challenge. But retirement is coming in a few weeks so things will change

Yes where is that time expansion app we’ve all been looking for?????

Blog posts:

Carmel always has great posts. Here is one for apps for family history tasks.

Readers: Do you have a favourite app you use when researching or travelling?

Using maps in family history

Tasmania
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Katherine H via Compfight

Our second lecture this week was on the value of using maps in family history. I am very inquisitive regarding where my ancestors came from, so am always using Google Earth to pinpoint locations. As mentioned in the notes though, there can be some problems with place names and locations in the 21st century compared to those in the 19th century and further back.

This lecture was by Imogen Wegman who is a PhD candidate at UTas and is a landscape historian. Here are my notes.

Who do you believe?

  • The records or family knowledge or heirlooms
  • Using a map might help prove, disprove the information you have gathered

Place names

  • sometimes towns straddle borders
  • often change or move counties
  • often spelt phonetically until 1850’s
  • remember dialects or accents might change sound of name – use this British Library site to help with these
  • important to use map of the time period you are searching
  • also check landowners in lots of locations

Boundaries

  • often change – parishes, regions, counties
  • current English counties established since 1974
  • since 19th century, maps are more consistent and reliable
  • during war, borders change, eg what was Poland might now be Belarus

Looking for maps

When searching on internet, use keywords such as

  • historical maps county name
  • digitized maps county name
  • also check for enclosure (landowners names) and tithe maps
  • UK – ordnance survey map – National Library of Scotland

Places to find maps online – this list copied from the course Map Collections page – thanks to Imogen

For Australian searching

Trove Maps

Land Information Systems Tasmania (LIST) Map

NSW: Historical Land Records Viewer

Queensland: Mapping Research and History

Northern Territory: Historic Map Index

South Australia: Map Sites

Victoria: Land

Western Australia: Maps Online

(None are known for the Australian Capital Territory.)

University of Melbourne Map Collection – Geographic Links
This is a collection of Australian and international links.

United Kingdom and Ireland

National Library of Scotland (including England Ordnance Survey)

The Irish Ancestral Research Association: Maps

GenUKI

My Readers: Are there any other map collections you know of that might be useful for family historians? Maybe American or European collections?

If possible include the URL in your comment and I will then add to this post as a link for others to use.