Learning Centre

New and exclusive for Premium and Worldwide members is the introduction of London Marriage Licences between 1521 and 1869. You can search through transcripts of approximately 25,000 marriage licences which were granted by the Bishop of London's Office (1521- 1828), the Dean and Chapter of Westminster's Office (1599-1699), the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury (1543-1869) and the Vicar General’s Office of the Archbishop Canterbury (1660-1679).

All of these records are searchable by name and keyword and consist of images from the original book, as well as lists of licences which were granted in particular diocese. However, they also include details of marriage licences from all over the UK and are a valuable source of family history information.

You might even stumble across one or two famous people in the records, including the English Civil War commander, Thomas Fairfax who married Anne Vere in 1637. You'll also find William Hogarth, the renowned english painter who married Jane Thornhill in 1728. And there's Robert Walpole who married Mary Burwell in 1676 and who was the father of the first British Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole.

Start your own search and find more famous people.

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For the first time ever, Ancestry.co.uk has made 134 million General Record Office (GRO) birth indexes fully searchable.

To make life easier for you, this new index is completely searchable by name, registration date and registration district. And you can now search every name in the birth index from 1837 to 2005. We're also working on similar updates to our marriage and death indexes which should be completed by the end of the year with over 250 million names available at the click of a mouse.

Once transcribed, the BMD indexes will sit in two separate collections – the first was indexed by FreeBMD who transcribed the Civil Registration index of birth, marriages and deaths for England and Wales from 1837 – 1915). And the second was transcribed by ourselves and includes the England and Wales Birth indexes from 1916-1983 and the GRO published index up to 2005.

Start searching now.

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Ancestry Parish Records

Ancestry.co.uk has 23 million names in their current parish collections. These include the very popular Pallot's Marriage Index for England 1780-1837 and Pallot's Baptisms Index for England 1780-1837, which cover all but 2 of the 103 parishes in the old City of London, but also include entries from 2500 parishes in 38 counties outside of London - many not available in other sources. There are other parish collections for English counties as well as some for Scotland and Wales.

To search for parish records:

1. Go to the Ancestry Card Catalogue you can get to this by clicking the link on the Search Tab from the homepage.
2. Then all you need to do is filter by area (select Europe)
3. Tick the box 'Only records from the UK and Ireland'
4. Type 'parish' in the Keyword box and click the Search button.

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We've been busy making some changes to Ancestry.co.uk. Firstly, searches with pre-populated information from your family tree will now include a Compare Card. So if you do a search, your results page will show which records are already saved to the person in the compare card.

You can also invite people to your family tree with ‘Inviter’, which lets you include a personal message and indicates who has been invited on your tree. And you can even preview messages.

To make sure you get the best from Ancestry.co.uk, we're also undertaking essential maintenance to the 1901 Scottish Census, 1861 Scottish Census and the 1861 England and Wales Census.

Log on now

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Another chance to win a copy of Nick Barratt’s "Encyclopaedia of Genealogy"

Here’s another fantastic opportunity to get your hands on Dr Nick Barratt's book – Who do you think you are? Encyclopaedia of Genealogy. It contains all you need to know about family history research – whether you're a beginner or more experienced researcher. This book gives you a guide to a full range of available resources, a fascinating exploration of context and social history, as well as real-life case studies, plus lots, lots more.

If you missed out on the last prize draw or you couldn't make it to the book signing sessions at the Who Do You Think You Are Live? 2009 event, this could be your lucky day. We're giving away five more signed copies. But you'll have to be quick because the prize draw closes at midnight on 30th March (UK time).

Enter prize draw here to be in with a chance of winning.

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