A route to the heroes of the past

May 17 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

A route to the heroes of the past

Obscure options

BROADENING searches into family backgrounds could entail delving into some rather more obscure records such as these:

* The National Archives (and The National Archives Scotland) will actually prove to be one of the most valuable sources of records in your search, with everything from death duty registers, migration records and adoption records, to Victorian prisoner photo albums and, of course, the Domesday Book – the very first public record.

* Churches will hold copies of baptism and christening records and the poor law records, which they administered up until the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834.

* Your County Records Office should be able to supply you with more recent poor law records as well as things like coroner's reports, social security records, a register of electors, and tax records.

* Recently, details of 100,000 trials at the Old Bailey between 1834 and 1913 went online, in addition to more than 97,000 which were already on the website at www.oldbaileyonline.org.uk, dating back to 1674.

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