500 Years Of London History To Launch Online – 77 Million Names

The following announcement was written by ancestry.co.uk:

Ancestry™ chosen to host City of London’s historical ‘London records’- largest collection in existence

The most comprehensive collection of historical London records, covering 500 years of the city’s history, is to be made available online for the first time. Following a lengthy tendering process, Ancestry has secured the exclusive online rights to digitize and host key records from London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) and Guildhall Library Manuscripts.

LMA’s historical record collection, which is owned and managed by the City of London, is considered to be of international importance, particularly given London’s prominence at the centre of the British Empire for almost 300 years from the mid-1700s.

As the City of London’s official partner, Ancestry will be responsible for providing global access to The LMA Collection. Original images of all historical records will be available on Ancestry.co.uk, the UK’s leading family and social history website, and more than 77 million names searchable using key information such as name, date and place.

Dating from the early 16th Century through to 2006, the collection details the lives of both princes and paupers. Included are parish records, school records, electoral registers, wills, lists of workhouse labourers from the Poor Law ledgers and a comprehensive list of those granted ‘Freedom of the City’.

The collection will take several years to index and image. Until now, those wishing to view records have had to visit LMA or the Guildhall Library, both based in Central London. Collection records have featured on Who do you think you are? episodes about the family histories’ of Patsy Kensit, Barbara Windsor and Stephen Fry.

Online access to LMA records has long been anticipated by family history enthusiasts in the UK and internationally: it will allow millions of people with ancestors who lived in or passed through London at some point in time to trace their roots, whether it be to the City’s slums or its more affluent boroughs.

The first records will launch on Ancestry.co.uk in early 2009, with the following prioritised for launch in the coming year:

• Parish records – records from more than 10,000 Greater London parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials dating from the 1530s to the 20th Century
• Poor Law documents - relating to the administration of poor relief, including workhouse registers from 1834 onwards
• London school admissions – records from 843 individual London schools dating from the early Victorian times through to 1911, providing admission and personal details for millions of London students

Josh Hanna, Senior Vice President of Ancestry, International comments: “Ancestry is thrilled to be selected as the City of London’s official partner in hosting The LMA Collection, especially as these records have such broad appeal and significance to so many around the world.

“In advance of participating in the tender process, we asked our members in the UK and elsewhere what they wanted and their overwhelming response was for the LMA records - even more so than for the 20th Century censuses.”

Dr Deborah Jenkins, Assistant Director of the City of London’s Department of Libraries, Archives and Guildhall Art Library, comments: “It has always been the City of London’s goal to make these important collections available to the wider public through digitisation and so we are delighted to announce Ancestry as our official partner in bringing 500 years of London’s history online.”

Comments

[Gary]

The more records the better! But as far as:

“...we asked our members in the UK and elsewhere what they wanted and their overwhelming response was for the LMA records - even more so than for the 20th Century censuses.”

.. They didn't ask me! ;) Call me selfish but I don't have many ancestors that passed through London, but I did have quite a few ancestors that passed through 1911 LOL!

[Brad Leifmoor]

Dick, you forget the most important facts.

How much is London paying for getting things digitized?

Will it be accessible to all or only to paying Ancestry members?

Please, give us the complete story!

[Dick Eastman]

---> Dick, you forget the most important facts.

I don't think so. As stated at the beginning of that announcement, "The following announcement was written by ancestry.co.uk."

Since I didn't write it, how could I leave anything out? (smile)

- Dick Eastman

[Miriam Margolyes]

This is wonderful news. the LMA have amazing records. For me, as a Jewish researcher, there are especially juicy pickings at these archives. But I would like to put in a plug for a FREE website-

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/

Searching their catalogue, which is NOT user-friendly, you can find & download as pdf. files, the actual, hand-written Registers of the Jews Free School;

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/search/hitlist.asp?keywords=Jews+Free+School&person=no&community=2&theme=3&date_from=&date_to=&format=text&source=5§ion=0&submit1=Search

These gives names, addresses, father's name & dates of arrival & departure at the JFS, which is where most of the Jewish immigrant children in London were educated in the 19th. Century.

The website also has similar jewels for those of Irish & West Indian & Asian extraction. But the records are not indexed; Ancestry's involvement will surely make life much easier for those who subscribe to it. And as we in the UK are now seething over the blunder in not completing the digitalization of the BMD records of the UK, I am grateful for Ancestry's involvement in this latest project. I feel it's more likely to happen.

[Dick Mindon]

Dick...

> Since I didn't write it, how could I leave anything out? (smile)

Duh dude. You are just posting their one-sided marketing message. You are leaving out what they leave out.

You really don't get what Brad is saying?
You left out the step where you investigate to get the complete story to report balanced news.

[Chris]

What Dick Eastman did was not write an article but the pass on a press release. He did not claim it was an article and therefore was not obliged to expand or research it.

One of the useful things about this blog are the press releases and similar that might otherwise be missed.

I doubt if you would have complained if the press release had not been from evil Ancestry!

I've no doubt the anti ancestry hysterics will start soon.

[Peter Calver]

Whilst not everybody with British ancestry has relatives who passed through London, many do - and researching in London can be particularly problematic.

However, I hope that Ancestry.co.uk won't use this as an excuse to raise their subscription rates again - that would be grossly unfair to those subscribers who won't benefit.

[Richard Heaton]

Cost Quality and Speed to Market
I welcome the news that we'll all have the opportunity to access records held at the LMA. They are a superb resource - we'll see brick walls coming down, and more puzzles for historians. I however do hope that the Speed to deliver the goods isn't compromised by poor quality transcription to try to keep cost down. And that where ever possible existing transcripts are consulted as a quality control check to raise the bar.
In addition I suspect family historians who never considered having London links will be surprised given London's status as an C18th melting pot (we only need to look at London Court records to see the number of individuals drawn (if briefly) from across the UK. Not to mention all the merchants, imigrants (many just passing through), sailors and soldiers.
And so I'll certainly be happy to renew my Ancestry subscription when project becomes available.

[Dick Eastman]

---> You are just posting their one-sided marketing message. You are leaving out what they leave out.

Yes, that is correct. That is deliberate and I hope to keep doing that for many more years. I will never, ever change their words. I will rarely even post additional words inside a company's press releases. Even if I feel that additional words are needed, I might write a SEPARATE article but it strikes me as impolite to change or add to someone else's words.

One of the things I like to do is to republish the (unaltered) press releases from many companies in the genealogy world . I also write my own (separate) reviews from time to time, but I never mix the two.

- Dick Eastman

[Miriam Sanders]

Dick, I think Brad and Dick are right. How hard is it to ask them for the additional information and post it along the press release?
Their press release is incomplete. You should have noticed that. Now they asked I want to know to... :-(

I like the newsletter for the press releases. Sorry to say your frequent messages about your sponsors, technology for beginners posts, your very brief reviews, and your constant struggles with backups and newsletter updates are just not interesting.

You are the only one posting all press releases. They are one-sided but they are news, and you publish a NEWSletter. Keep them coming.

[Josephine]

This is wonderful news! Thank you!

To those who are complaining: perhaps you should contact Ancestry yourselves and post the resultant articles on your own blogs.

[Ruth Hardman]

All that I am reminded of here is the old saying "there are people who would complain if they were to be hung with a new rope:.

[Jay Kay]

Oh boy, there's a few whingers around. The press release has been long awaited, the negotiations have been going on for months, the BBC picked up the news a couple of days ago (it was on teletext for those that understand these things). At last the work can begin on this rather large project.

There is/was no other company with the ability to undertake this task who could work with local government to digitise, index, and make available on the net the large amount of material available. Anyone who thinks otherwise should have been tendering and negotiating last year.

It is my understanding that access to digitised material will be available free of charge at the LMA and Guildhall Library, printouts from screen will of course be chargeable. It will be available to subscribers to ancestry.co.uk. Anyone with a non-uk subscription will presumably have to pay extra, just as those of us with co.uk subs have to pay extra to access US data, for example.

It is anticipated that a news article will be published in The Times shortly, no idea if this will be online, possibly. No idea who they are talking to but LMA director seems likely.

Rock on 2009!
Jay

[Bob Wissinger]

Page no longer works - get "The page you tried to access is no longer available"

[Caroline Gurney]

There is a pattern to these posts attacking Dick (and others) which I have commented on before. Google "Brad Leifmoor" and "Dick Mindon" and you will find they have no web presence apart from their posts on this thread. I suspect they are one and the same troll.

[Sandra J Smith]

I think this is fantastic news! I have spent years travelling the 90 plus miles to LMA (about 2-3 times a year). Each visit is usually disappointing - with such large parishes, largely unindexed, a whole day can be spent just searching a few years for that ellusive CMB.
I have no problem with ancestry charging but if I really didnt want to pay anything, I would do what I do with similar PRO databases - save it all up for one visit and do the whole lot in one swoop for nothing other than printing costs.
For the whingers - please button it! Any tool is better than none!

[Brad Leifmoor]

Caroline,

You wrote things like:

> posts attacking Dick
> "Brad Leifmoor"
> troll.

I ask Dick a question and you decide to call me a troll?
Oh wait, you are trolling for an angry response....
Please go troll somewhere else.

[Dick Eastman]

There are many people who always complain. Pessimists are everywhere and I must admit that I don't pay much attention to them. Most of the time I don't even bother to read their comments here.

Almost everything worthwhile in this world was created by optimists. I am reminded of a quote from Paul Harvey: "I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist."

Let's move on.

- Dick Eastman

[Jim Allen]

Dick does have a point with his remarks about optimists and pessimists. We should not totally discount, however, the old saying - "An optimist is someone who hasn't heard the news!" (Sorry about that).

[J Kirk]

I welcome the information from the LMA. I hope that the indexing is done well as all the problems with boundary changes etc will still apply. London is confusing even to those who used to live there and I still need my umpteen copies of the A to Z for reference.

A slight whinge though - actually who did they ask about what we wanted?
Most people in the UK have a WW1 army ancestor so the service records were very welcome although they are nowhere near my V's and W's yet in the indexing. And yes the Scottish Register Office weren't willing to let them have the census images -fair enough as they did it first and although costly it is a comprehensive site with pre-1900 Will extracts as well as parochial record and census images.

I suppose the LMA stuff has the advantage of all being in one place for convenience which is why I won't hold my breath for all those parish baptism and marriage records not on the IGI which are tucked away in little record offices all over the country in counties which don't have proactive family history societies which have indexed them.

London is difficult for boundaries etc but then so is the Bedfordshire/Huntingdonshire/Cambridgeshire/Northants area where my ag. lab families may only have travelled a total of 25 or so miles (or a day's walk) but lived married gave birth and died in all four counties (one of which no longer exists officially.) I have the advantage of having lived there at one time so I have some idea of the geography but..... Or the Yorkshire Ridings which are also problematic some of which no longer being Yorkshire!

[Brian P. Swann]

Dear Dick, All

As ISOGG Regional Co-ordinator for England and Wales - I think this is fantastic news.

Before Liverpool took over the emigrant trade from the 1840s onwards most folk sailed from London. So this is one of the last true frontiers of sources for American emigrant ancestry before 1850.

And if you get the actual images of the parish registers and wills - who can grumble?

How the records will be indexed is a key point - and also whether the costings will be on an annual subscription basis or a "pay-per-view".

But it would be churlish to grumble at what will become an indispensible source for most folk with British ancestry. You have discussed the true costs of online resources before - and this just has to be good news.

I am at the LMA next weekend doing work for Katherine Hope Borges, and will meet CLiff Webb on 1st November. And no-one knows more about London and Middlesex records for Family Historians than Cliff Webb.

Best regards

Brian

[Sandra J Smith]

I had another thought about this...
Unfortunately the collections of LMA are only part of London archives. I assume that the City of London (Guildhall Library) and City of Westminster (Westminster archives) are not included in the deal. So many will continue to be thwarted in their on-line searches.
Sandra

[Steven]

This is fantastic and will make it easier for us people away from the motherland as essentially all our research has to be online. (I live in Western Australia). The streets and the parishes and the changes over the years are so confusing, how do/did you people manage to live over there. Thank god for google earth

For those who worry about the cost, I go to my state library that has a library subscription to Ancestry and access it for free. Printouts are 20 cents. Alternatively I pay $50 per year for a subscription to my local geneological society and get free access when thier library is open.

One thing to be very careful of is being overwhelmed by the bells and whistles and assuming that it is the font of all knowledge. I have found a couple of problems with it, one of which is that when you do the generic person search it doesnt search all its databases, only the major ones. It is best to go to each particular database and check them individually. I have also found that not all the census data is not there. I went looking for an ancestory, couldnt find him and assumed he was off shore then went looking for smiths, jones and blacks living in the same area. Finding none of those I eventually discovered that that the census data for that area had not been digitised and had to order in the original films.

[Ian Galbraith]

Dear all

Indexes and abstracts for a large amount of LMA and Guildhall material (containing 2-3 million names) has been available online on British Origins (www.originsnetwork.com) for some years, including around a million marriages, burials, apprentice records, wills and court records; more London marriages (not on any existing index, including IGI) will be online this month, with further apprentice records, court records and poor law records before the end of the year. All these indexes include the LMA or Guildhall references.

This material has been indexed by the Society of Genealogists and by Cliff Webb over many years, and it would be a shame indeed if the work of the many volunteers involved in these projects was cast in shadow by the recent announcement. Work continues on indexing and abstracting LMA and Guildhall material and is unlikely to be greatly affected by the announcement, at least for some considerable time. It is unfortunate that LMA has shown no interest in these indexes and abstracts, and that it appears that - yet again - source material is going to re-indexed (at what quality?), when there is so much valuable material which never has been indexed.

Thanks to Brian Swann for mentioning Cliff Webb. Cliff has done more than probably anyone, ever, to help researchers into London area family history.

In response Sandra Smith, the Guildhall and LMA are now effectively under common management. But it's my understanding that Westminster City Archives are not part of this deal.

Best regards

Ian

[Carol]

When someone posts a news release- that is what it is, a news release. Why do people expect everything handed to them? What is wrong with taking the information as given and doing our own investigating/checking it out?

Those of us who were doing arm chair research in the 60's - 80's etc would have given our eye teeth for the information we have available today. Paid or free...

We are free to select what we want to use, free or paid. And paid- well how expensive is paid compared to traveling in this country and beyond to access the same information that sometimes is not accessible to the average individual?

I personally have neither the funds nor the health to travel all over to find information on my ancestors. So I choose where to put my money to get the best information back.

And that is alright. So much is accessible now that was not even a very few years ago. We need to appreciate what we have available, make our choices, and quit complaining.

[Jay]

Some of the seemingly well informed posters seem to have forgotten that those indexes and transcriptions which are available on odd sites, such as Origins etc, do not give online access to the images of the original documents. This surely is what all good research demands. At least looking at the image oneself one is responsible for ones own errors of interpretation and not reliant on somebody else's!

It is of course extremely valuable to make use of a local person's knowledge of a particular area. But having that is no guarantee that indexes currently available are perfect.

Surely the most important thing is that those who simply can not reach the LMA/Guildhall will be able to continue their research through accessing Ancestry.co.uk by whatever means - personal sub, library access etc. Better still they can "see the real thing" - which can be a bit of a thrill!

And as a mac user, Ancestry make things easy for me - not something which can be said of several other sites, including Origins.

Of course the thorny question of who pays is one which appears to cause difficulty to many. LMA/Guildhall are funded by the corporation of the City of London. I would suggest that their priorities should not include digitising records and running servers. I still have memories of the access difficulties experienced using FreeBMD before they gained extra funding from Ancestry, together with original access to 1901 census when their servers could not cope at all.

Of course Liverpool might do a deal with Ancestry - but London surely won't be involved!

Jay