Save time with our records round-up! It’s your at-a-glance guide to what’s new in genealogy. In this series, exclusive to newsletter subscribers, we will be bringing together a monthly round-up of record releases from genealogy sites around the world. (Please note that many of the below websites may need a subscription to be able to access the records mentioned).

 

ANCESTRY

Worcestershire parish records

This updated collection has had new material added for births and baptisms 1812-1922 here, marriages and banns 1754-1947 here and deaths & burials 1813-1997 here.

UK, Registers and Indexes of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Passengers and Seamen at Sea, 1891-1922

This collection is new to Ancestry and covers over three decades of records, including the World War I period.

What information is included?

The records in this collection may allow you to verify that your ancestor was born, married, or died while aboard a British ship. The records also contain many family names to help you expand your family research. 

The registers and indexes were created by officials working for the Registrar General of Shipping and Seamen. The records are primary historical documents, and they are housed at the National Archives in Kew.

British Newspaper Archive

Bath Journal

The BNA has added a long run of this historic publication, with issues of the journal spanning the years 1772-1821 - see here for the years included. 

FIND MY PAST

Wales 20th-century parish records

At FindMyPast, total of 15,428 baptism records have been added from 1923, with the largest updates to Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire. You can also delve into 10,236 marriages and banns records, covering the year 1938 and 13 Welsh counties. All include transcriptions and original images.  

Explore here.

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MY HERITAGE

PhotoDater™

MyHeritage has announced the release of its free PhotoDater™ feature, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to provide an estimated date for old photographs.

How does it work?

PhotoDater™ uses a proprietary machine learning algorithm developed by MyHeritage to provide an estimate of the year when a photo was taken. The date estimation algorithm was trained on tens of thousands of curated, definitively dated historical photos to help the algorithm understand nuances such as clothing, hairstyles, facial hair, furniture, and other objects that are characteristic of a particular decade.

The algorithm provides date estimates for undated photos taken between 1860 and 1990, for which it is reasonably confident it can return results with high accuracy. 

To use PhotoDater™, visit MyHeritage and click ‘photos’ in the main menu. If you have undated photos that aren’t on MyHeritage yet, upload them first to receive PhotoDater™ estimates. Whenever you view the Photo Page, if the photo is undated, PhotoDater™ will work automatically in the background to generate a date estimate. PhotoDater™ is currently available on the MyHeritage platform on desktop. Find out more at MyHeritage.

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THE GENEALOGIST

Legal records

New at TheGenealogist: discover judges, barristers and other court officials in lawyer lists from 1780 to 1911. TheGenealogist explain that these book records can give family historians facts about an ancestor, often revealing  useful details of their lives beyond simply their professional particulars. 

Want to know more?

Read this special blog from TheGenealogist on how their experts unearthed details of a legal ancestor of Helen Bonham Carter's. 

Oxfordshire 

TheGenealogist has just added records covering every head of household and property owner in Oxfordshire around the period 1910-15 with their latest release. Known as the Lloyd George Domesday Survey, the site now has over 2 million records searchable online from this collection, covering all boroughs of Greater London plus Middlesex, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and West Hertfordshire, along with the newly added Oxfordshire.

The new release covers over 1,000 square miles of Oxfordshire in the early 20th century

About The Lloyd George Domesday Survey

• The Lloyd George Domesday Survey identifies individual properties on extremely detailed 1910-1915 maps, zoomable to the exact plot.
• The surveyors’ field books provide fascinating details about the house, often revealing the size and number of its rooms
• Maps reveal the features of the neighbourhood in which an ancestor lived
• Search using the Master Search or by clicking on the pins displayed on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer™ 
• Historic maps are layered over modern street maps, allowing you to see how an area changed over time

The project will expand to cover the rest of England & Wales.

Find out more...

Read TheGenealogist’s article in which these records were used to find the property of Oxford resident William Morris: The Cyclist Champion who built a car empire

Explore with a diamond subscription at TheGenealogist.

Does your group, society, record office or archive have a record release you'd like to share? Email us and we'll be in touch.