The following is an announcement from Origins.net:
Origins.net, specialists in British and Irish genealogy, is proud to announce a completely revamped online genealogy service, now named the Origins Network. The new service, located at www.originsnetwork.com, provides multiple new and exclusive British and Irish genealogy collections via Irish Origins and British Origins (formerly English Origins), as well as a FREE version of Origin Search, the first genealogy specific search engine, now including over half a billion names. The new service is available on an all-you-can-view subscription basis, and includes an advanced version of NameX the most powerful name variant finding tool available on the web, as well as many other new features.
“We’re very proud of the new Origins Network service;” said founder Ian Galbraith, “Origins.net is known for its commitment to quality, and the improvements are a result of extensive research with genealogy experts and users. The new collections and services mean British and Irish family history researchers can be confident they can access the highest quality and breadth of range of genealogical information available online.”
After considerable feedback from users, the Origins Network has moved to a subscription based service to allow access to unlimited records and images. New services include Free place searches for England, Ireland and Wales, Origins Store, improved IGI searching and easier ordering on Scots Origins, articles on English and Irish genealogy by Sherry Irvine (past President of the Association of Genealogists) via a Free monthly newsletter.
New British Origins Collections (www.britishorigins.com)
As many of our upcoming collections include records from Wales & Scotland, English Origins is now known as British Origins.
There are over 1,000,000 new names available for searching on British Origins:
- Articles and Maps from McKenzie’s Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales (1895). Fully searchable with 20,000+ articles on cities and towns, images of maps for every English and Welsh county, and plans for principal places.- Boyd’s London Burials (1538-1872) and Boyd’s Cornwall Marriages (1537-1839). These datasets on not available elsewhere online. The addition of Cornwall to our Boyd’s Marriage collection means that all English counties are now covered.
- 1871 England and Wales Census; Glamorgan and Wiltshire counties (exclusive to British Origins), with more counties to be added on an on-going basis.
“British Origins is an essential online stop. It has unique resources and key index tools (apprenticeship records and Boyd's indexes are my favourites) as well as a real commitment to quality.” Sherry Irvine, past President of the Association of Genealogists.
New Irish Origins Collections (www.irishorigins.com)
100,000+ new names and 5000+ new images are available for searching on Irish Origins.
- Maps and town plans relating to Griffith’s “Primary Valuation” of Ireland (1847-1864). This unique collection, made available by the Valuation Office Ireland, includes 5000+ digitised images of the actual Ordnance Survey maps and town plans used and marked up by the Griffith’s Valuation Team, which cover every townland in the Republic of Ireland, and are available for the first time online on Irish Origins.- Index of Irish Wills 1484-1858. As the vast majority of Ireland’s testamentary records were lost in the destruction of the Public Records Office in 1922, this one-of-a kind collection, containing valuable information which includes names, addresses, occupations, and more, is particular valuable.
“We’re thrilled to present the original Griffith’s map images and the Irish Wills Index for the first time online, and delighted that the Valuation Office, the Irish National Archives and Eneclann have chosen to make these collections available exclusively via the Origins Network.” said Origins Network founder, Ian Galbraith.
FREE Origin Search and New Origin Search Pro (www.originsearch.com)
- Origin Search, a specialized web search engine for genealogy featuring NameX powered search across millions of web pages, is now available in a Free basic version on the Origins Network site.- For serious genealogy researchers, the Origins Network has created the new Origin Search Pro, featuring advanced searching and email alerts for new pages found matching user-stored names.
Both versions now feature results from over 9 million genealogy specific web pages including over ½ a billion names, improved filtering and easier viewing of names found on specific pages. Origin Search Pro is available separately or by subscription to British Origins and Irish Origins.
Upcoming Collections
The Origins Network is committed to continuously adding valuable new datasets to the site to benefit our subscribers. Additions over the next few months, will include many more 1871 Census records, Surrey Will Abstracts, Index to Inheritance Disputes in Britain (1574-1714), the Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Index: Medieval (1389-1500), Chancery Proceedings of the Time of Charles I Index (1625-1649) on British Origins and The Dublin City Census Index (1851) and the William Smith-O'Brien Petition (1848) on Irish Origins, as well as a vintage photograph and image gallery.
About The Origins Network (www.originsnetwork.com)
The Origins Network (formerly Origins.net), specialists in British and Irish genealogy, has been recognized as “the ultimate Web resource [for genealogy] in the British Isles” (Family Tree Magazine). British Origins and Irish Origins offer access to definitive genealogical data and image collections for researching family history online.
Based in the UK, and partnered with primary content providers in Britain and Ireland, the Origins Network is the only major online genealogy resource concentrating on Britain and Ireland. This means that the Origins Network can offer local expertise and access unique source records that US based companies can’t provide, as well as the complete coverage that UK-only or Ireland-only organisations can’t match. The extent of migration between Britain and Ireland and the commonality of many names has, compounded with the passing of time, been a cause for confusion even to natives of Britain and Ireland, who need to be able to access source data from both areas to pinpoint their real origins.
Due to The Origins Network’s unique position as partners to major cultural and genealogical institutions in Britain and Ireland, including the Society of Genealogists, the Borthwick Institute, the National Library of Ireland, Valuation Office Ireland, and Eneclann Ltd., most of our British and Irish Origins datasets are not available anywhere else on the internet.
The Origins Network also offers a unique genealogy specific web search engine, Origin Search, which allows researchers of ancestors worldwide to locate family information faster and easier via structured searches and results over genealogy specific pages. Visitors to Scots Origins can access a Free IGI search and order official Scottish records research.
As the first company to put official vital genealogy records online, The Origins Network continues to pioneer the technology of online genealogical record search and retrieval. NameXtm, a proprietary name-matching tool which powers searches on British Origins, Irish Origins and Origin Search, is the most powerful name variant technology available. NameX-powered searches locate a wider range of genuine variants of a person’s name than any other software, which is important as many names have common historical variations in spelling or have been spelled incorrectly on some important records.
