Learning Centre

Ancestry World Archive Project's latest collections involve transcribing the Dictionary of National Biography and Chalmers' General Biographical Dictionary. This means we will now be able to offer our members fully searchable records.

The Dictionary of National Biography began in 1882 as an ambitious project spearheaded by George Smith. His aim was to produce a biographical dictionary of prominent figures from Britain and Ireland up to 1900. The efforts of hundreds of contributors resulted in a 22 volume alphabetical series containing thousands of biographies. Our database contains Volumes 1-20 and 22 of the series, which includes the biographies of those with surnames Abbadie-Whewell. It also contains The Concise Dictionary, which is a summary guide and index to the rest of the series, and The Supplement, which deals with people who died too late to be included in the earlier volumes.

Meanwhile our database of Chalmers' General Biographical Dictionary contains all 32 volumes and includes an historical and critical account of the lives and writings of the most eminent people from every nation, particularly those from England and Ireland.

Find out more about Ancestry World Archive Project

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£10 off 'Your Family Tree' magazine subscription*

We're delighted to announce a special offer exclusively for Ancestry.co.uk members. You can get £10 off a subscription to Your Family Tree magazine. It is the most respected genealogy magazine around, which balances the use of PCs and the Net with the many traditional means of research. Your Family Tree makes tracing family history accessible and rewarding for everyone. It offers practical advice, written by experts, on all areas of family history research.

Your Family Tree subscription gives you:

• 46% off the shop price with this offer
• 13 issues a year plus a CD-ROM with every issue
• FREE delivery direct to your door - so you never miss another issue again
• 60-day money back guarantee

To save £10 on your subscription, click here and enter the voucher code: ANCEST2376 when you reach the checkout

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Gazetteers and topographical maps

We have lots of specialist collections available which you might find interesting. This month we'd like to tell you about our collection of gazetteers and topographical maps. Gazetteers are very useful sources for genealogists because they help us locate and learn about the places our ancestors lived.

The type of information given in various gazetteers differs, but usually the state and county (and sometimes township) are listed. This information will help to locate a place name on a map and to determine the town or county in which the major records such as vital, land and probate are located.

The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales for example, provides a complete description of these countries and an alphabetical dictionary of counties, dioceses, parishes, boroughs and more. Meanwhile The Gazetteer of Scotland is a geographical dictionary that provides topographical, statistical, and historical information about places in Scotland.

Another well-known dictionary is The England Topographical Dictionary. This contains over 30,000 historical and statistical descriptions of counties, cities, townships, and parishes of England, as well as the islands of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. The descriptions include the place name, location and the number of inhabitants. And any interesting facts such as landmark descriptions, industries, prominent individuals, schools, churches and local activities are also listed where available.

The Ireland Topographical Dictionary is an alphabetical dictionary which provides historical and statistical descriptions of several of Ireland's counties, cities, boroughs, corporate markets, post towns, parishes, and villages from A - Gur.

Last, but by no means least is Cassell's Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland. It is a topographical dictionary of the United Kingdom and these volumes include information on places named Cheddington - Zoze Point.

We'll see you next month with more
fascinating family history news.

The Ancestry.co.uk Membership Team

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*Your Family Tree Offer Terms and Conditions:
Voucher redeemable against credit card/debit card subscription purchases on www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/ancestry only. Offer and voucher valid until 30th June 2009. Use subject to Your Family Tree Terms & Conditions.

Voucher is non-transferable. This voucher may only be used once. Valid against a new subscription to Your Family Tree only, not subscription renewals or single issues. No cash value. Promoter: Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW.

**Prize Draw Terms and Conditions
The Promoter of the prize draw is The Generations Network Limited (CRN: 05246359) of Amberley Place, 107-111 Peascod Street, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 1TE. The draw is open to UK residents, excluding Northern Ireland, aged 18 and over, except employees and immediate families of the Promoter, their agents or anyone professionally connected with this draw. A winner outside of the M25 may be liable to cover travel and accommodation costs for the filming crew, of up to a maximum of £175 in total. The prize offers one winner a 20 minute documentary including: 1 x filming day (up to 6 hours) at the winner's home and 6 x days editing. The final film will be delivered on DVD. The winner must arrange a date for the filming day, to be held within 12 months of winning. This date will be agreed subject to filming schedules and cannot be between 15th September 2009 and 5th January 2010. The final DVD will be delivered within 6 months from the filming day. Only one entry per person; no bulk or third party entries. Closing date for receipt of all entries is midnight GMT 29th May 2009. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt. No responsibility can be accepted for entries incomplete, delayed, damaged, wrongly delivered or not received for whatever reason. No cash alternatives to the prize will be offered, and the prize is not transferable. The winner will be notified by e-mail or post within 14 days of the closing date. An independent person will draw the winning entry. The Promoter's decision is final and binding and reserves the right to amend, modify, cancel or withdraw the prize at any time without notice. No correspondence will be entered into. By entering into this draw you accept these terms and conditions. The Promoter reserves the right to substitute a prize of equal or greater value should circumstances make this necessary. The winner's name and county will be available 28 days after the closing date from Ancestry.co.uk, 3rd Floor, Waterfront Building, Hammersmith Embankment, Chancellors Road, London, W6 9RU, UK. By entering into the prize draw the winner consents to the use of their name and excerpts of the final film for promotional purposes. In the event of any prize not being claimed within 1 month of the closing date, a redraw will take place with no further obligation or liability to the initial winner.

General terms and conditions
Use of Ancestry.co.uk is subject to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement.

Ancestry.co.uk is owned and operated by The Generations Network, Inc. a company incorporated in Delaware, USA and whose registered office is at 360 West 4800, North Provo, Utah 84604 USA.

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We're constantly updating and improving our site to make searching family histories even easier and more enjoyable. As always your comments and queries are a great way to help us achieve this.

Navigation will now be easier
We're updating our navigation header soon to make it quicker and easier for you to get around the site and find the pages that will help you with your family research. Now many things will be only a click away.

Find out more...

Also this month, based on your feedback, we've improved how you search for content on our Card Catalogue. We've made sure the UK category always shows first - rather than having to click into Europe.

We've also made some improvements to the logged-in home page. You may have noticed that you now have the box below. This will allow you to search the UK census databases by year, more quickly. If you don't wish to have it on your homepage, you can customise your homepage to remove it and add other useful widgets.

We've got some exciting new features ready to launch in the next few months, look out for the latest news in this section of the newsletter next month.

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Win the opportunity to preserve your research and stories on DVD, with your own 20 minute documentary film worth up to £3200.

Family Features is a specialist film production company who is passionate about preserving human stories. They're offering ONE lucky winner the chance to have a dedicated director and small camera crew to help them bring to life their ancestors' stories, giving them the opportunity to record all the love, learnings, joy and wisdom of their family and ancestors!

Using sit down interviews, Family Features will use family archives and memorabilia to bring your stories to life and we will be getting you on your feet to wander through time, space and memory, as we film you in the comfort of your own home.

There is no better way to celebrate your research now and pass on your family history to future generations. Find out more about Family Features at: Family Features TV

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

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We always want to find out a bit more about how our members use our website. So last month we asked how many of you had searched the new London Historical records 1500s to 1900s?

Thanks to all 1872 of our members who responded. You might be interested to know that 17% of members said they had searched, while 38% said they hadn't and the remaining 45% said they intended to.

This month our question is:
'Would you like to receive more information on any changes we make to the Ancestry site?'

Yes   No    Don't Know

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