Kearney and Young Family History

Leading family history website findmypast.co.uk has, in partnership with the Royal Archives, added more than 300,000 new records to their Royal Household Staff collection, bringing the total to over 386,000 records. The collection now covers almost four centuries of life in the service of the British Royal Family, stretching from 1526 to 1924.

The records include detailed information about the nature of each staff member’s employment, their salary and their reason for leaving service. Some also contain signatures of staff members, allowing their own handwriting to be seen for, on many occasions, the very first time.

Paul Nixon, Licensing Manager for findmypast.co.uk, said: “While finding a link to royalty is seen by many as one of the most interesting things for a family historian, now we can tell the fascinating stories of those who lived and worked alongside them.”

The records are available on all findmypast sites and can be searched at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/other-records/british-royal-archives/

Wills made by English and Welsh soldiers during the First World War have been made available online. Poignant personal messages written by tens of thousands of Britain’s fallen First World War soldiers are being made public online for the first time through an innovative project set up by Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service (HMCTS).

HMCTS is releasing the Probate Office’s huge archive of 280,000 soldiers’ wills ahead of next year’s First World War centenary. Members of the public can now search an online database for a will left by a relative who died in battle, or any other soldier they are interested in learning about, and request copies of any available documents.

Every soldier had to complete a will before they headed to the front line so that their estate could be dealt with if they lost their life. They carried a copy with them and many used the will to write letters to their loved ones, expressing their feelings. Many of the historic documents show the physical damage suffered in the war.

The WW1 wills form part of the archive of 41 million records held by the Probate Service since 1858 which HMCTS is currently in the process of making available to the public, in partnership with technology provider Iron Mountain.

Later this year all the records will be made available through a new online service, enabling members of the public to easily request copies of the documents.

Scanned copies of The First World War wills can be ordered online for £6 each.

The Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland)  – ARA –  has signed a deal, on behalf of a large number of archives and schools,  with digital publishing experts brightsolid to publish online for the first time millions of school records from England and Wales.

This will be the first project to be undertaken under the framework of the new National Digitisation Consortium, which comprises up to 120 English and Welsh archives and schools working together to offer records for digitisation.

It is the first time such a large number of bodies will work together to digitise material – in this case their pre-1914 school registers. Once the registers have been scanned and transcribed by brightsolid, they will be made available to search online at leading family history website findmypast.co.uk, which is owned by brightsolid.

The registers span the period 1870-1914 and cover every region of England and Wales. They contain details of particular interest to the family historian, including name of the school and the pupil, their date of birth, year of admission to the school and the name of a parent or guardian. Teachers are also listed and Industrial School registers are included in the collection.

Leading family history website findmypast.co.uk has made an additional 2.5 million court records available to search online in its Irish Petty Sessions Court Registers 1828-1912 record set, which exposes the petty crimes Ireland’s residents committed and how they were punished.

The additions feature 44 new courts in 19 counties around Ireland. A further 55 courts have been supplemented with records from additional years. This brings the total Petty Sessions Court Registers on findmypast.co.uk to over 12 million records.

Notable new courts that have been added are the Limerick City Children’s Court and two courts with pre-famine records – Moynalty, Co. Meath and Nenagh, Co. Tipperary. As well as that, for the first time, seven new courts from Co. Longford have been added, bringing online over a quarter of a million new records for the county. Also well represented with totally new courts are Laois (five) and Cork (four).

Being drunk in a public place, being drunk in charge of a cart, failure to pay rent and allowing livestock to wander on the road are among some of the most common misdemeanors that our ancestors found themselves in court for.  Although most defendants got away with a fine, the variety of cases heard gives a real flavour of life in Ireland at the time.

Debra Chatfield of findmypast.co.uk said “The British public has always had very close ties with the emerald isle, so this is a fantastic new resource for those looking to understand a little more about what their ancestors did before they came to Britain and maybe even in some cases why they left Ireland in the first place!”

New courts have been added to the following counties: Clare, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Laois, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Sligo, Tipperary, Waterford and Westmeath.

To find out if you have ancestors who had their day in court visit www.findmypast.co.uk