Find My Past New Collections
Findmypast has added Lincolnshire Baptisms, with 216,638 new and unique records joining the FMP collection. These records cover 269 churches ranging in years from 1754 – 1812. The records include information about Alfred Tennyson and Sir John Franklin.
Joining Lincolnshire’s baptisms are 52,387 marriages from the Suffolk Marriage Index collection. These additions cover the years 1813 – 1837 and 500 churches.
For something new from West Yorkshire – the National School Admissions Register. So, if your family has connections to Halifax you may be in luck. Records being added to the existing collection, which includes pupils of both school-age and adults (up to the age of 45), covering the years 1867 – 1927.
There have recently been quite a few new collections and updates to many existing military records. A completely new collection is bound to be of interest to many of us. This collection is the British Army, Local Armed Forces’ Enrolment Forms Anglo-Boer War 1899 – 1902. The amount of information is mainly dependent on the type of form used but mainly contains the soldier’s usual information – name, age, nationality and trade of soldier as well as the usual regiment, regimental number and place of enlistment. A physical description can make these men come to life.
When I find a new collection, I, probably like many of us, add a family name to the surname search. Well, I had a little surprise when I added Riach to the Boer Enrolment collection – not many results, three in total, but something to get my teeth into later. I was a little disappointed with the result from Arthur Riach, who was born in 1868 and enlisted in 1900 in Port Elizabeth into Brabant’s Horse. Lucky enough for me, Arthur has two records with much more information. Arthur was 30 years old, and his mother lived at 53 Bassett Road, North Kensington, London.
David MacKinlay Potter Riach was born in 1876 and enlisted in Cape Town in July 1901. He served in the Civil Service Company Cape T Guard C. D. F. David had previously served in the W. P. M. Rifles. In his civilian life, he had been a Civil Engineer in the Civil Service. His next of kin was his father, Revd. W. .L. Riach of 3 Tipperlinn Road, Edinburgh.
I searched for another of my family’s names but found nothing. I tried a few surnames I know the group has a connection to but found nothing. One last name was included before I gave up on the collection. I tried Officer – a surname which I have in my tree from Wakefield. And there was one entry. William Officer, born in 1861, was 40 when he enlisted in August of 1901 in Durban. He served as 2813 in the Railway Pioneer Regiment, having previously served in the Wrafekaig Town Guard S. L. H. for 15 months. William was married to Ida, his next of kin, who lived in Colesberg. One other snippet of information on his record was that he was a Presbyterian.
Sadly, the transcribed records I looked at had limited information, but probably enough get an idea of the man at that time in his life.
Last collection I found very interesting – a set of 12,000 commemorative plaques – you know the ones, Blue Plaques you see up and down many towns, although some of the plaques in the collection are not necessarily ‘blue’. The information is limited, but there is a bonus of having a picture.
Ancestry has recently added the following to its ever-growing collection.
The county of Berkshire has done well with this recent update with the Berkshire WW2 Evacuation Records 1939 – 1945; Home Guard 1943 – 1958; Civil Defence 1939 – 1945 and WW2 Related Miscellaneous Records 1939 – 1971.
Another new addition is Scotland, Burial Monument Inscriptions 1507 – 2019.
This link is not new but may be of interest to some of you. The Public Record Office Victoria (Australia) has uploaded information, links and images of Convict Registers. The images of the Register of Convicts include – name, ship, arrival date, sentence, ticket of leave (date and number) and occupation and remarks.
I hope that this information has given you something to get your teeth into on a rainy day.