What's New on Ancestry.co.uk

Historical Records

Jan 2010

Over 31 million UK Parish Records available

Tracing your family way back beyond 1837 has never been easier, thanks to our continued additions and improvements to the Parish Records.

Last year alone we added over 13 million new records to our Parish Records collection, and with improved search options you've now got much more chance of finding your distant, distant ancestors in one of the largest collections available, anywhere online.

And we will be continuing our efforts to add to the Parish Records collection in 2010, starting with the Bishops Transcripts, from the London Metropolitan Archives.

With the majority indexed and often including images, these amazing records bring your more distant family history vividly to life. And you'll find that searching has just got easier - just give names, dates and places and we'll speed into action to find the results you want.

Find out more about our UK Parish Records

Nov 2009

Glimpse a view of forbidden love in our Gretna Green
Marriage Registers

Gretna Green became the destination for eloping young lovers following the introduction of Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753. The law in England was changed so that anyone under the age of 21 had to have the consent of guardians or parents. There was no lower age limit but the marriage had to be celebrated in church, entered in the parish register and signed by both parties.

In Scotland, the minimum age limit had remained 16, so many young couples from England headed north for their weddings. As Gretna Green was on the London to Edinburgh stagecoach route and was the first stopping point across the border, many couples decided to marry there - often only just getting through the ceremony before their pursuers arrived.

The Gretna Green registers are not just simply a record of marriage but provide a view of forbidden love. Young couples who wanted to be together against all the odds. Now, through our Ancestry World Archives Project, we've made one of the oldest and largest of the Gretna Green marriage registers available to everyone.

Start searching our Gretna Green registers now

Nov 2009

Great news for those looking for family members
who fought in WWI!

We've just finished indexing all the surviving British Army WWI Service Records. Previously records were only available online up to the letter N - but now you can find records all the way to Z.

Although 60% of the records were destroyed in a German bombing raid on the War Office repository, about 2.8m records survived or were carefully reconstructed from pensions records. Finally, after two years of painstaking work, these detailed records are ready for you to search online.

The information available varies by soldier but includes basic details such as name, address, date of birth and next of kin. There are also medical records, discharge papers and Army Form B 103 that provides information on a soldier's promotions, reductions, transfers, casualties, etc., during active service.

This series is only available with us and is the definitive UK WWI collection - if you can't find the records here you won't find them anywhere else.

In addition to the WWI Service Records we have two other new collections; Ireland, Casualties of WWI, 1914-1918 and De Ruvigny's Roll of Honour, 1914 - 1924.

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Ancestry.co.uk Enhancements

Jan 2010

Not Sure About The Correct Spelling?
Try Our Improved Feature for Searching

When using search forms, you could substitute unknown letters within a name using the * (asterisk or star) and the ? (question mark); these are known as wildcards. The * matches zero or more characters, so if you type in Ann*, this will match names such as Ann, Anne, Anna, or Annabelle; the ? matches one and only one character, so if you type in Ann?, this will match names such as Anne or Anna but not Ann or Annabelle.

Previously, you had to use three characters and then either a * or a ?. We've made a few changes:

• Now you can put a wildcard first, such as *son or ?atthew to catch all of those unusual spellings and variations that our ancestors came up with.
• Either the first or last character must be a non-wildcard character. For example, Han* and *son are okay, but not *anso*
• Names must contain at least three non-wildcard characters. For example, Ha*n is okay, but not Ha*
• These changes apply to both simple search and advanced search, and both old and new search.

Some more examples

• So if you are having a problem finding a Smith, you might try Sm?th, as this will match both Smith and Smyth or you might try Sm?th? so you can match Smithe, or Smythe.
• Or if you are searching in one of those sets of historical documents where all the T's look like J's or S's, try using a ? or a * at the beginning of the name.
• If you are searching for names such as Sally or any other name such with a double letter, try substituting the second letter with a *. This way if it wasn't written down that way, you'll still get a match. Mat*hew matches Mathew and Matthew.

(Wildcards do work with exact matches and they will give you a lot more flexibility in how you retrieve records. Note: they do not work with Soundex matches, just exact or ranked.)

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