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Rosemary Lockie's Quick Reference Page

"Who? What? Where?"

Some queries can be answered very simply online, using one of the sites below. The sites themselves should be self-explanatory, so details of what to expect are omitted. Basically it's a list of my own favourite research sources.

A List of Topics Covered

If you are looking for:-

• Contact details for a contributor to one of my pages for:-

  Derbyshire Contributors	Gloucestershire Contributors	Herefordshire Contributors
  Cumberland Contributors	Shropshire Contributors	Monmouthshire Contributors

• A Person in the Present Day
  • British Telecom (Directory Enquiries) or UK White Pages - 192.com "the largest UK directory enquiry service". See also Other Places for Finding People, below.
  • Friends United, a site devoted to reuniting old school and college friends.

• A Person in the Past
  • FamilySearch - www.familysearch.org, or go direct to the Custom Search IGI Page.
  • In the Napoleonic Wars - The Age of Nelson.
  • During the Civil Registration period beginning 1837
    • FreeBMD - FREE search of selected transcribed Civil Registration Indexes for England and Wales.
    • findmypast.com (formerly 1837online.com) - FEE-PAYING search of Indexes 1837 - 2001.
  • In its early stages, but may prove fruitful - UK Burials and Cremations. Added 5 Sep 2008.
  • In 1901 - search the 1901 Census online.
  • If he or she died in either of the World Wars, try The Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
  • FFHS databases online - Family History Online (small fee payable). Added 4 Jun 2007.
  • A traveller on Britain's inland waterway network, the Virtual Waterways Archive. Added 5 Nov 2007.
  • For Scotland, Scotland's People provides a search mechanism for Scots OPRs (Old Parochial Records), BMD Certificates and 1841-1901 Censuses. This is expensive, but so is a trip to Edinburgh if you don't live nearby!
  • Again in Scotland, Scots Origins also provides a variety of free, and chargeable Lookups.
  • Leicester University's Digital Library of Historical Directories for England and Wales.
  • Worldwide directory of links to census transcriptions - Census Online.
  • Stablemates to FreeBMD above - FreeCEN and FreeREG - respectively, FREE Census and Parish Register databases.
  • So far, no joker has begun a project for their companion - FreeWILL - but Rob Burns is collecting 'Wills for All'.
  • A member of the Royal Family, or the Peerage. Added 30 Dec 2006.
    • Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page - Peerages of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom.
    • thePeerage.com - "A genealogical survey of the Peerage of Britain as well as the Royal Families of Europe".
  • The more distant past - Chris Phillips Medieval English Genealogy web site. Added 22 May 2007.

• A Person in London
  • In Newgate Prison - online transcription of The Complete Newgate Calendar, 1926 edition. Covers a period up to 1841, and records case histories leading to trial and imprisonment.
  • The Proceedings of the Old Bailey London 1674 to 1834

• A Newspaper Reference
  • Information on British Library Newspapers Digitisation Project.
  • Search the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes - Gazettes Online.
    The Gazettes are the official newspapers of record for the United Kingdom.
  • "It's Old News" - Old News Copy - searchable archive of old newspaper articles from Victoria, Australia.
  • Newspapers on "Old Liverpool" website - Old Newspaper Extracts UK. Added 15 Sep 2005.
  • The Times Digital Archive (1785-1985) may be available if you have a (UK) Library card - see your county library homepage eg Herefordshire Libraries for details. Added 1 Apr 2008.

• A Place (in the UK)
  • In the Present Day - UK Street Map, or UK MultiMap,
    or satellite views eg, Google Maps, or MS Live Search Maps. Updated 6 Jan 2008.
  • Somewhere to stay - Travellers World UK Tourism and Accommodation Guide.
  • In the Past - Old Maps - 1:10,560 scale historical maps.
  • On GENUKI - The GENUKI Gazetteer
  • Availability of records for a particular place - The Family History Library Catalogue

• A Book
  • In Print - any online bookstore, such as Amazon.com, or if it's related to Family History, the Society of Genealogists' Bookshop.
  • Out of Print - COPAC (the University Research Library Catalogue) is a good way of finding publishing details so you can order from your local library on ILL (Inter-Library Loan); or if you want to find a second-hand copy to purchase - Bibliofind (Amazon) or Bookfinder.com.
  • International - OCLC WorldCat - the international equivalent of COPAC.

• Electronic Text
  • Links to all the Web sites mentioned in the book The Genealogist's Internet.
  • Project Gutenberg - wide variety of electronic texts (Chaucer, Dickens, &c.)
  • The Gentleman's Magazine (scanned images)
  • The Literary Heritage website - authors of the West Midlands. Added 14 Sep 2005.
  • Google Books - searchable extracts from 'The Gentleman's Magazine' and more. Added 8 Aug 2006.
  • The Wayback Machine Text Archive. Added 18 Feb 2008.

• A Library or Record Office
  • FAMILIA (Family History Resources in Public Libraries in Britain and Ireland)
  • ARCHON (Archives On-Line)
  • Access to Archives - database of Record Office Catalogues (requires cookies enabled)
  • Archives Network Wales (ANW) - similar service for Welsh Archives. Added 8 Aug 2006.

• A Museum
  • The National Waterways Museum (at Gloucester Docks) The National Virtual Museum
  • The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL)
  • The National Maritime Museum
  • British Army Museums and Ogilby Trust

• A Will
  • DocumentsOnline National Archives collection of PCC Wills. Added 16 May 2007.
  • Rob Burns is collecting 'Wills for All'.

• A UK Postcode
  • Royal Mail - Postcode/Address Finder (requires cookies enabled)
  • AFD Postcodes

• A Church (in the UK)
  • UK Church Directory - "find a church" - (multi-denominational)
  • A Church Near You. Added 14 Oct 2008.
  • Churches true to the Gospel - "ukchurch.org" - searchable interface and A-Z. Added 5 Sep 2008.
  • "A Thousand Years of English Churches" - The Churches Conservation Trust.
  • The GENUKI Church Database
  • A list of forbidden marriages according to CoE ecclesiastical law:
    The Society of Archbishop Justus - and their Table of Kindred & Affinity

• A Public House, or Inn
  • Pubs and Breweries of the Midlands: Past and Present
    Select 'Pub Histories' for listings by county.
  • pub-explorer
    Ironically, the Public House may often be found next to the Village Church!
  • Gloucestershire Pubs.
  • Inns and Public Houses of Sutton-in-Ashfield.
  • John Crossling's History of Warwickshire Pubs.

• A (Disused) Railway Station
  • Closed Railway Stations in the UK - details of Disused Stations. Added 14 Feb 2008.

• An Emigrant
  • findmypast.com (formerly The National Archivist) provides chargeable access to digital images of:
    • Passport Applications 1851 to 1862 and 1874 to 1903 (1863-1873 are missing)
    • Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths at Sea 1854 to 1890.
    plus various other records, for example Estate Duty Office Indexes and Divorce and Matrimonial Causes.
  • To the US (1892-1924) Ellis Island Foundation
  • Ships Passenger Lists - Index of Indexes
  • For more comprehensive shipping research - The Ships List. Added 11 Sep 2008.

• Genealogy Icons or Clip Art
  • Cape Jasmine Designs
  • Free Graphics - from the Timberlake Family website.
  • Old Time Clip Art
  NB: The images on these sites are free for personal use only.

• How Much is it Worth?
  • What is the equivalent today of (say) 3d in 1783? Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to 2007.

• A Coat of Arms
  • International Civic Heraldry - United Kingdom. Added 14 Sep 2005.

Other places for finding People

Australia White Pages and Australia Yellow Pages
British Columbia Yellow Pages and British Columbia White Pages
Canada411.ca
EYP - UK Yellow Pages
New Zealand White Pages and New Zealand Yellow Pages
Switchboard: The Internet Directory - US only,
Royal Mail - Postcode/Address Finder and UK Postcode / Address Software (latter includes limited search)
Who Where? - finds email addresses
Yahoo! People Search (includes email)

Many of these sites will also provide links to other search mechanisms. InfoSpace UK, and UK White Pages seem most useful for the UK.

Some Miscellaneous Links

• Freephone or local dialup alternatives (UK only) to premium rated numbers - Say No to 0870. Added 23 May 2008.

• "The largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web" - Open Directory Project. An encyclopaedic lookup - many topics are covered.

• Search Usenet (the collective name for Newsgroups) - Google Groups. Formerly 'Deja News'.

• The home of UK Weather Forecasting - The Met Office. Added 12 Sep 2008.
  • Weather Forecast by the BBC
  • 10-day forecasts provided by UK Weather
  • Links to weather forecasts in other countries - AccuWeather.com

Just for Code Monkeys

Call me a programmer? Darn, like plumbers where are they when you need one? However I suspect the term is at worst outdated and at best ambigous, so I decided on 'Code Monkey' , since I enjoy coding applications more than planning or designing. Here are one or two sites I've found useful in developing the applications I use to assist in managing my websites.

• The Microsoft DLL Help Database Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Yet Another Code Site - smart advice to accompany Borland's C++ Builder, VCL, and related Microsoft Windows API issues. Added 21 Sep 2005.
• The Internet Component Suite (ICS) from Overbyte Freeware, by Françoise Piette. Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Mike Lischke's GraphicEx Library from Delphi Gems. Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Programmer's Heaven. Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Filemon and ProcessExplorer from Windows Sysinternals. Added 21 Sep 2005
  (NB since adopted by MicroSoft and requires Silverlight, the MS equivalent of Adobe Flash)
• SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language) parser from James Clark's Home Page. Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Source Forge - various! Added 21 Sep 2005.
• Programmer's file and data format resource - Wotsit.org. Added 4 Mar 2008.

I found all of the above code sites extremely useful - thanks guys! :)

Web-Related and E-mail Links

• Want to validate your web pages? Check them for correct HTML syntax using the HTML Validation Service, and display the smart icon that you see at the bottom of this page!

• Hate Spam (Unsolicited Email)? Report it to SpamCop. SpamCop techniques aim to stop it at source!

• If you're a web page developer, tips and tricks for good HTML code practices may be found at:-
  • Sizzling HTML Jalfrezi - learning tool, and reference guide for developing good web pages.
  • The Idocs Guide to HTML - simple, step-by-step instructions for whatever you want to do on your web site.
  • Cyndi How's Genealogy Home Page Construction Kit - for Family History sites. Added 17 Dec 2005.

• Check for broken links on your own web site using XENU.

• WinFiles - for miscellaneous software, utilities, &c.

‘Myth Busters’

These websites offer a return to sanity if you're feeling brainwashed into believing everything you read online...

• The Phrase Finder. “What's the origin of that phrase?”
  Discover that ‘Dead Ringer’ doesn't mean what you thought it meant... Added 30 Nov 2006.
• Quack Watch - ‘Your Guide to Quackery, Health Fraud, and Intelligent Decisions’. Added 30 Nov 2006.
• Urban Legends Reference Pages - for example “A month before Kennedy was assassinated he was in Marilyn Monroe...” Added 17 Dec 2005.
• The Skeptic's Dictionary.

... not that I'm suggesting they're necessary as an antidote to this page... nonono, of course not - hehe!

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Copyright notice:
All pages at http://www.wishful-thinking.org.uk/
are Copyright Rosemary Lockie, GENUKI and Contributors 1997-2008, &c.
All rights reserved.

URL of this page: http://www.wishful-thinking.org.uk/QuickReference.html