Records Office Guide

From the Family Tree Forum Reference Library

A Guide To Information Available In Your Local Records Office

County Records Offices

The biggest headache in locating record offices is boundary changes. Records that relate to your area often end up archived in their original shire county despite the introduction of unitary authorities and metropolitan boroughs and counties.

To view the set up of Counties Prior to the changes implemented in 1974, click here:

COUNTIES OF ENGLAND SCOTLAND AND WALES PRE 1974


Should we put the contents list here or put the link to the page itself?

Index to Counties

Bedfordshire Berkshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire
Cheshire Cornwall Cumberland Derbyshire
Devon Dorset Durham Essex
Gloucestershire Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire
Huntingdonshire Isle of Wight Kent Lancashire
Leicestershire Lincolnshire LONDON (Middlesex) Norfolk
Northamptonshire Northumberland Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire
Rutland Shropshire Somerset Staffordshire
Suffolk Surrey Sussex Warwickshire
Westmoreland Wiltshire Worcestershire Yorkshire
Channel Islands and Crown Dependencies including the Isle of Man

Births Marriages and Deaths

  • Link to Online research pages in the wiki

Burial Records

Parish Records

Census Returns
  • Link to Online research pages in the wiki

This page will be VERY long - should the next bits be on a page on their own???

Other Types of Records


Archive Collections

Architectural drawings and building plans

Coroner’s Records

Court Sessions and Victualler's Licences

Directories: Trade, Street and City

Electoral Registers and Poll Books

Emigration and Immigration

Hospital Records

Manorial, Land and Estate Deeds

Maps: Tithe and Ordnance Survey

Military Records

Newspapers and Journals

Photographs

Poor Law and Workhouse Records

Records of Merchant Seamen

School Records

Taxation Records

Wills and Probate