Chris Porter's family history favourites

Note for visitors: This is a set of links to material I have found useful in tracing my Porter / Howes ancestry. It is placed here particularly for the use of my own family who are starting out in the genealogical game and is in no way intended to be comprehensive or systematic. For general researchers, there are many excellent sites providing links to a wealth of resources online, and in print. One of the most comprehensive and widely cited is Cyndi's List.

My own Family: This link takes you to where you will find the data directly relating to my own family and research. The remainder of this page comprises links to sites I use frequently, find useful or have found interesting.

General Family History sites

Findmypast: Subscription site with a vast variety of useful material - and getting more all the time. Includes historic newspapers amongst many more traditional resources.
Ancestry - UK edition: Subscription site with lots of useful stuff.
National Archives: Access to a wide variety of sources - a growing collection of digital items,including a number made available through Findmypast or Ancestry. Includes access to their catalogue - Discovery - and a number of useful search guides.
FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service: A good starting point for prelimary rummagings - especially useful for earlier material - ie. pre 1837. Much changed in recent times - with many links to interesting digitised documents,some of which require subscriptions to external services to view. Now virtually unusable without setting up an account.
Find a Will: The National Probate Service's searchable index to UK wills from 1858 to the present. Allows you to request a copy of the will to be digitised for a very reasonable fee.
IGI Batch Number Help: information about the 'batch numbers' used in the IGI - very useful for narrowing your search down to a particular parish
American Family Immigration History Center: very interesting general information - covers immigration to the US from 1892 to 1924. Lots of useful and informative stuff, but of no practical relevance to us.
GENUKI: An all-round good site - lots of useful information about British family history. Well worth exploring thoroughly.

Maps and places

National Library of Scotland's Map Collections: Superb collection of maps - especially comprehensive for Scotland, but extremely good coverage of the rest of the UK
GENUKI: Alphabetical list of places in Yorkshire: VERY useful list of which places are where, which parish they are in, information about the place, and nineteenth century directories.
Historical mapping from the Ordnance Survey: Shows a variety of historical maps of mainland Britain from 1846 to the 1990s. As a snapshot of the country they are excellent - they tend to be poorer in towns, almost illegible, but a very good starting place. Now mainly a subscription site - though still useful for getting a sense of a place over time.
Bolles Map Browser: Wide variety of historical maps of London from different ages. Easy to compare areas across centuries.
Charles Booth's 1889 Descriptive Map of London Poverty: interesting map showing the socio-economic character of individual streets in London.
Charles Booth Online Archive: excellent RSLP project from the LSE - not only the Booth maps, but digitised notebooks, some digitised books about nineteenth century London, and other goodies.
Reynold's map of modern London from 1859: excellent map of London in 1859, with zooming to a very detailed level.
Victorian London A-Z Street Index: useful partial listing of streets etc in the London of a former age, showing whereabouts the streets were located - in general terms. Useful for reference - but only part of the alphabet is currently covered; the definitive list of reprinted old Ordnance Survey maps produced by this fine company - they are currently being produced at the rate of a hundred a year - and check out the monthly competition to keep you entertained.

Civil Registration and Censuses

GRO's record service: Index searches, and ordering facilities for the GRO's birth, marriage and death certificates. Now particularly helpful for finding 'mother's maiden name' back to 1837 and for 'age at death'. Search interface is quite clunky, but the data is fine!
Scotland's People: Archival records of Scots and all things Scottish. Most searches require credits to search, as well as see the results. Extremely useful - not to say essential - for those of Scottish ancestry.
GRONI Online: Records from the General Register Office Northern Ireland. Most searches require credits to search, as well as to see the results. Date range of records much more restricted than English/Welsh GRO records, but can be downloaded if they are available.
Irish census records: Census records from the National Archives of Ireland. Only 1901 and 1911 are systematically available, as they are the only ones to systematically survive.
FamilySearch's Census search page: Access to a range of international Censuses, with a mixture of transcriptions and transfers to partner sites. Can be very handy indeed. Now requires registration to use.
FreeBMD Project: Becoming an excellent resource. A worldwide cooperative venture to transcribe all the GRO indexes - ie. the registers of births, marriages and deaths (hence BMD). When it is complete, it will be a fabulous resource - but it is getting there rapidly. A great free alternative to the subscription services.
GENUKI: England Topics - Civil Registration: nice page giving good links on many important aspects of registration. A good place to look
GENUKI: Registration Districts In England And Wales (1837-1930): Very useful list of which places are in which registration district - can be invaluable in identifying the correct person in GRO indexes
GENUKI: Yorkshire Genealogy: The Yorkshire section of GENUKI. A good starting point for a whole range of stuff.
Bob O'Hara's information about searches at the Public Record Office: Bob is a researcher offering a commercial searching service in the PRO. He looked for W.W. Porter's military record, and did a good job of it - to be recommended.

Societies

Yorkshire

East Yorkshire Family History Society: covers Hull and Scarborough, together with all the area between. Very useful publications - don't forget that in 1851 Falsgrave counts as Scarborough District, as it did not become part of Scarborough until later.
The City of York and District Family History Society: covers York and environs - includes Ganthorpe and Terrington, Malton etc. as well as areas closer to York such as Bishopthorpe.
The Cleveland, N. Yorks. and S. Durham Family History Society: covers the North York Moors, Whitby etc.

Worcester

The Birmingham and Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry: covers Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Staffordshire.

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire Family History Society: covers Oxfordshire!

Dorset

Dorset Family History Society: although this Society just covers Dorset, it seems to have fewer relevant publications than the Somerset and Dorset FHS.
Somerset and Dorset Family History Society: covers both Somerset and Dorset. Produces several excellent publications - including transcriptions of all censuses from 1841 to 1891 for Wareham and the Isle of Purbeck.

London and Middlesex

London, Westminster and Middlesex Family History Society: covers the City of London.
West Middlesex Family History Society: covers Fulham.

One-name studies

The Guild of One Name Studies: Searchable list of people who research people with a particular surname - includes: Boyes, Horseman and Cunnington - but, sadly, no longer Fancy, following the death in 2009 of the very helpful Will Fancy.
Cunnington surname family history worldwide: ... as I said ... Cunnington!

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Created and maintained by Chris Porter. (c.e.porter@dunelm.org.uk)
Last updated: 31 Jan 2018