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St John the Evangelist, Lambeth
(parish registers from 1824)
I visit all major and some local LONDON ARCHIVES:
London Metropolitan Archives, Guildhall Library, the National Archives, Westminster Archives (City of Westminster Archives Centre), Corporation of London Archives (City of London), Southwark Local Studies Library, Wandsworth Archives, Camden Archives, Islington Archives, British Library (India Office), Society of Friends' Library (Quakers), First Avenue House (wills), Barts & London Hospital Archives.
I can access COUNTY OF SURREY archives at Surrey History Centre and Croydon Local Studies Library (see CHARGES for details of archives visited and hourly rate applicable). For a list of parishes in the County of Surrey, please go to the bottom of this page.
I can search the following sources in London, Surrey and Middlesex (click on SUSSEX tab for Sussex sources):
LONDON, SURREY & MIDDLESEX
Parish Registers (baptisms, marriages, burials), Bishops' Transcripts, marriage licence records, banns books, monumental inscriptions etc for parishes in London (including ex-Surrey, Kent and Middlesex) and Surrey (county).
Metropolitan parishes which used to be in Surrey include Battersea, Bermondsey, Brixton, Camberwell, Clapham, Horsleydown, Kennington, Lambeth, Newington, Peckham, Rotherhithe, Southwark, Streatham, Tooting, Walworth, Wandsworth.
Metropolitan parishes which used to be in Kent include Charlton, Deptford, Eltham, Greenwich, Lee, Lewisham, Plumstead, Sydenham, Woolwich.
Metropolitan parishes which used to be in Middlesex include Bethnal Green, Bloomsbury, Clerkenwell, Chelsea, Fulham, Hackney, Hammersmith, Holborn, Islington, Kensington, Marylebone, Paddington, Pancras, Pentonville, Piccadilly, Poplar, Ratcliff, Shoreditch, Somers Town, Stepney, Strand, Stoke Newington, Westminster, Whitechapel.
London, Surrey and Middlesex Nonconfirmist registers, including Independent Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist and Quakers.
London, Surrey, and Middlesex census returns 1841-1901, where microfilm copies are held in local archives. Pre-1841 returns exist for some areas, providing limited information, some with name and/or occupation of head and numbers of males/females in household; some arranged by street. 1911 census on-line at: http://www.1911census.co.uk/ (pay-per-view). 1901 census on-line at http://www.1901censusonline.com/ (pay-per-view).
Burial ground and cemetery records including Brookwood Cemetery (the London Necropolis), Highgate Cemetery and Bunhill Fields (for Nonconformist burials). Monumental Inscriptions (MIs) (gravestone inscriptions).
London (including ex-Surrey and Middlesex) inquest records, hospital and asylum records (100 year closure applies except for baptisms in hospital chapels), children's home records, Poor Law records, workhouse records, settlement examinations, removal orders - if you have a certificate indicating birth or death in a workhouse, an infirmary or an asylum, I can advise whether related records may survive. Some workhouse records can be extremely informative.
If you're researching a London family who had children between 1865 and 1914, try a search on the Historic Hospital Admission Registers Project (a work in progress, with more databases added periodically) at http://hharp.org/about-project.html ;
London (including ex-Surrey and Middlesex) convicts and prisoners; criminal registers; prison and prison hulk records; trial records;
London (including ex-Surrey and Middlesex) poll books, electoral registers, Absent Voters' Lists, rate books, trade and residential directories;
London, Middlesex and Surrey newspapers from mid-19thC - birth, marriage and death notices; obituaries; reports of accidents, suicides, inquests, trials etc;
London, Middlesex & Surrey Licensed Victuallers' registers; Innholders' Company records; public houses and taverns, publicans, coffee house keepers;
London houses, shops, streets, neighbourhoods: do you want to know exactly where family members lived?
London, Middlesex and Surrey house history;
London photographic and print archives to 1980: streets, churches, chapels, schools, theatres, music halls, public houses, markets; parks, events, neighbourhoods; London print archive, some from 1700.
Hopefully more archive photographs will eventually become available on-line:
view 9,000 images of Lambeth, Waterloo, Brixton, Clapham, Streatham, Norwood from Lambeth Archives' collection at:
http://landmark.lambeth.gov.uk/default.asp
view the Francis Frith London collection at http://www.francisfrith.com/london/
view detailed antique prints and engravings of Southwark (dealers' website - please note that I have no connection with this company) at http://www.heatons-of-tisbury.co.uk/londsouth.htm
view archive images of East End markets, including Bethnal Green, at http://www.mernick.org.uk/elhs/ELHS.htm
view images of Barnet, Hampstead, Finchley, Hendon and Edgware at http://www.barnetimagebank.co.uk/
view an interesting selection of archive photos taken by members of the Croydon Camera Club:
http://www.croydoncameraclub.org.uk/ClubArchiveHome/ClubArchiveMembersPhotographs/ClubArchiveMembersPhotographs.htm
view Surrey images from the Francis Frith collection at: http://www.francisfrith.com/surrey/
I can also access records relating to:
London schools, including admission registers (which usually record pupils' dates of birth); photographic archives - some dating to the 1950s; records of Christ's Hospital; the Royal Mathematical School; Foundling Hopsital;
Watermen and Lightermen and others working on and alongside the Thames;
London livery company records; Freemen of the City of London; London apprenticeship records - if you've found a will which reads Citizen and trade (e.g. Turner) of London, I may be able to find further information. Drapers' Company records now deposited.
London merchants, brokers, tradesmen, manufacturers;
London, Middlesex and Surrey watch/clockmakers;
Metropolitan Police force records; City of London police force records;
London letter carriers/postmen and postmasters;
London nursing; WW1 nurses (QAIMNS, FANYs etc);
Sun Life Insurance policies and follow-up;
A superb new website has become available, which includes materal from the following parishes: St Martin in the Fields, Westminster; St Clement Danes, Westminster; St Luke, Chelsea; St Botolph, Adlgate and St Dionis, Backchurch, as well as much, much more. Bookmark this website before you leave, then search London Lives by surname and given name (narrow by date range) at:
http://www.londonlives.org/
Wider searches:
BMD indexes covering entire country, BMD reference checks and index searches. Please note that I usually obtain BMD certificates only when researching a full family history or tracing living relatives. On-line ordering is available via the GRO (see link below).
Indexes to army regimental birth registers; army returns of births, marriages and deaths; embassy and consular registers, births, marriages and deaths overseas;
NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW - records cover the entire country
WW1 army service and pension records cam be searched on-line via various pay-per-view/subscription websites (note that only 40% of army service records survive); medals up to and including WW1. Too many possibilities? To try to establish a soldier's service number, I can search Absent Voters' Lists;
WW2 personal service records remain with the appropriate Service - contact details at bottom of this page - records of the Home Guard are likely to be the first released at some point after 2011. I can access some WW2 material, e.g. war diaries and documents relating to POWs (prisoners of war) who survived and were liberated in 1945;
WW1 and WW2 war diaries;
Army discharge documents, medal rolls, musters and payrolls, description books, attestation ledgers, marriage rolls, registers of effects (please contact me for a free initial assessment of your requirements);
Royal Navy service records, ships' pay books and musters, ships' logs, registers of seamen's services, allotment registers (record payments to next of kin), ships' photographs to WW2 (please contact me for a free initial assessment of your requirements);
Air: RFC; RAF (please contact me for a free initial assessment of your requirements - special interest in WW2 RAF crew, squadron diaries, combat records and operation logs), WW2 bases and airfields in the UK - some photos survive;
WW2 Prisoners of Wars (POWs), escapees and evaders - escape and evasion reports, liberation questionnaires;
Merchant Navy: seamen's service records (some material relating to WW2 service can be searched); seamen's pouches; 18th and 19thC crew lists and agreements; Certificates of Competency and Service for Masters, Mates, Engineers, Cooks, also Skippers and Mates of fishing vessels; ship's logs; Lloyd's Captains' Registers; Lloyd's Lists, Pilots;
Army & Royal Navy nursing services (QAIMNS, FANYs etc); Army & Royal Navy chaplains;
Local militia lists and muster rolls; militia attestation papers;
Convicts and prisoners; criminal registers; prison and prison hulk records; trials; petitions, session and assize records;
Divorce case files 1858-1938 (for searches for post-1938 divorces contact: Principal Registry of the Family Division, Decree Absolute Section, First Avenue House, 42-49 High Holborn, LONDON WC1V 6NP)
Bankruptcies
BRITISH LIBRARY (ASIA, PACIFIC & AFRICA COLLECTIONS - INDIA OFFICE)
Ecclesiastical returns to baptisms, marriages and burials in India; cemeteries and monumental inscriptions in India; wills;
East India Company records.
For records relating to army service in India: see NATIONAL ARCHIVES, KEW above (please contact me for a free initial assessment of your requirements).
Please note that I do not search for pre-1858 Wills as a separate search (with the exception of Sussex) unless in conjunction with ongoing research, as will holdings in London, Middlesex and Surrey are spread throughout a number of archives: visit http://www.documentsonline.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wills.asp for free on-line searching and charged downloading of pre-1858 PCC wills. Before 1858, he PCC had jurisdiction throughout England and Wales and was frequently used. If no entry is found in the PCC wills index, try the Surrey Wills index hosted by Rootsweb http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engsurry/ . The London Probate Index is a work in progress and a CD can be purchases covering surnames beginning with A-E at http://www.davideastkent.canterhill.co.uk/lp-index.htm . Some pre-1858 London wills are in the process of being made ready for digitisation and the full original document may be unavailable. I do undertake individual searches for pre-1858 PCC Admons - sometimes granted when a person left no will - which are not included in the PCC wills index. If a person died unexpectedly, a grant of administration may have been issued to allow their next-of-kin to administer their estate (not necessarily of substantial value) and these admons may sometimes refer to joint administrators, who were often both relatives.
For post-1858 wills for any location in England & Wales, I can undertake a personal search at the Principal Probate Registry, First Avenue House and obtain a copy of the will (if found) forwarded by e-mail (charge: from £15.00 if date/Quarter of death is known).
Alternatively for post-1858 wills the Court Service at www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/wills.htm offers a competitively-priced search service of their own - check how long it will take for your will to arrive before placing an order. If you require a post-1858 will urgently, a priority service is available.
If your field of interest is not mentioned, please contact me with details of your enquiry.
For details of how to order BMD certificates on-line or by post or telephone, visit www.gro.gov.uk . Certificates cost £9.25 (from 1 April 2010) when ordered on-line via this link. If you know the exact date and church in which a couple were married, you may prefer to use my single-entry parish transcription service @ £10.00 (please click on Parish Registers tab and read carefully the notes at the bottom of the page).
Useful websites (don't forget to add this page to your Favourites before you leave):
Click on http://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/map.php for an on-line 16th century map of the City of London. Based upon the Agas map, the earliest surving printed map of London, it includes many City of London churches;
Click on http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/horwoodpages/horwoodmain.html for Richard Horwood's map c. 1795, showing individual properties in the City of London, Westminster and Southwark;
Click on http://www.londonancestor.com/leighs/str-menu.htm for an on-line index to London streets in 1819;
Click on http://users.bathspa.ac.uk/greenwood/index.html for an on-line, interactive version of Greenwood's Map of London 1827;
Click on http://archivemaps.com/mapco/cross1844/cross1844.htm for an on-line version of "Cross's London Guide", map of 1844;
Click on http://london1851.com/cross07.htm for an on-line version of "Cross's London Guide", map of London dated 1851;
Click on http://archivemaps.com/mapco/whit1865/whit.htm for an on-line version of Whitbread's map of London of 1865;
Click on http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/stanfordpages/stanfordMAIN.html for Stanford's highly detailed map of London c. 1872;
Browse and search the 1898-99 poverty map of London created by Charles Booth - tip: search by parish, then zoom in to see streets in detail at http://booth.lse.ac.uk/ ;
Click on http://www.maps-of-london.com/ to view an interactive street map of London c. 1940 - in my opinion, this map could be earlier, as buildings which were in existence in the mid-1930s are not shown. (Tip: use the locations printed in black on the map and/or the postal districts, e.g. S.E.5, to find the location of interest - it's best to ignore the districts the mouse flags up). To see a list of districts arranged by postcode, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_postal_district .
Click on http://alangodfreymaps.co.uk to purchase good-value copies of old Ordnance Survey maps covering the whole of London.
Click on http://www.oldlondonmaps.com/ for an excellent on-line resource.
A reference to a sum of money is often found in wills and deeds etc. To work out its value at a certain time, try:
http://www.measuringworth.com/
http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html
For London weather conditions, month by month from 1900, see:
http://www.london-weather.eu/category.46.html
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WOOLWICH ARSENAL - EXHIBITION
http://www.greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/LeisureCulture/HistoryAndHeritage/HeritageCentre/InsideTheArsenal.htm
Exhibition at Royal Arsenal and the Royal Woolwich Dockyard covering 400 years of history from Henry VIII: convicts living on the Woolwich hulks (e.g. Justitia and Retribution); men, women and children who worked on site; the establishment of the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Sciety (RACS); film of working conditions at the site during WW1. Free admission for personal visitors or:
view virtual tour:
http://www.greenwichheritage.org/virtual/arsenal.html
(requires Flash Player version 8.5)
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WW2 SERVICE RECORDS
WW2 service records are generally released only to the serviceman/woman or, if deceased, to their next-of-kin on production of proof of death. If you are a relative, but not the next-of-kin, you need to have the written permission of the next-of-kin as well as proof of death in order to apply for the service record. For further information, contact:
Army:
Army Personnel Centre, Historic Disclosures, Mailpoint 555, Kentigern House, 65 Brown Street, Glasgow G2 8EX
(0845 600 9663) .. .. .. .. .. .. .. e-mail: disc4@apc.army.mod.uk
Royal Navy:
RN Disclosures, Room 48, West Battery, Whale Island, Portsmouth,
Hampshire PO2 8DX
(02392 628779 / 02392 628781)
RAF:
RAF Disclosures Section, Room 221b, Trenchard Hall, RAF Cranwell, Sleaford, Lincolnshire NG34 8HB
(01400 261201)
PMA 1M 1B RAF, Room 5, Building 248A, RAF Personnel Management Agency, RAF Innsworth, Gloucester GL3 1EZ
(01452 712612)
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Parishes in the County of Surrey:
Alfold, Ash, Ashford, Ash Vale, Ashtead, Bagshot, Banstead, Barnes, Beddington, Belmont, Benhilton, Bentley, Betchworth, Bisley, Blackheath, Chilworth, Bletchingley, Blindley Heath, Bookham, Botleys & Lyne, Bourne, Bramley, Brockham Green, Brookwood, Buckland, Burgh Heath, Burpham, Burstow, Busbridge, Byfleet, West Byfleet, Camberley, Capel, Carshalton, Caterham, Chaldon, Charlwood, Cheam, Chipstead, Chobham, Churt, Clandon, Claygate, Cobham, Coldharbour, Compton, Coombe (New Malden), Coulsdon, Cove, Cranleigh, Crondall, Crookham, Crowhurst, Croydon , Cuddington, Ditton (Thames Ditton; Long Ditton), Dorking, Epsom, Esher, Ewell, Ewhurst, Ewshott, Farleigh, Farnborough, Farncombe, Farnham, Felbridge, Fetcham, Fleet, Frensham, Frimley, Frimley Green, Gatton, Godalming, Godstone ,Grafham, Grayshott, Grayswood, Guildford ,Hackbridge, Hale, Ham, Hambledon, Hascombe, Haslemere, Hatchford, Hawley, Headley, Hersham, Hinchley Wood, Hindhead, Holmbury, Holmwood, Hook, Horley, Horne, Horsell, Horsley (East Horsley West Horsley) Hurst Green, Kenley, Kew, Kingston, Kingston upon Thames, Kingston Hill, Kingston Vale, Kingswood, Knaphill, Laleham, Leatherhead, Leigh, Lightwater, Limpsfield, Lingfield, Littleton, Loxwood, Long Cross, Lowfield Heath, Lyne, Malden, Merrow, Merstham, Merton, Mickleham, Milford, Minley, Mitcham, Molesey, Morden, Mortlake, New Haw, New Malden, Newdigate, Norbiton, Norbury, Nork, Norwood, Nutfield, Oatlands, Ockham, Ockley, Okewood, Ottershaw, Outwood, Oxshott, Oxted, Peaslake, Peper Harow, Petersham, Pirbright, Purley, Puttenham, Pyrford, Ranmore, Raynes Park, Redhill, Reigate, Richmond, Riddlesdown, Ripley, Roundshaw, Rowledge, St Helier (Morden), Salfords, Sanderstead, Seale, Selhurst ,Selsdon, Send, Shackleford, Shalford, Shamley Green, Sheen, Sheerwater, Shepperton, Shere, Shirley, Shottermill, Sidlow Bridge, Southwark, Spring Park, Staines, Stanwell, Stoke next Guildford, Stoke dAbernon, Stoke d'Abernon, Stoneleigh, Stoughton, Sunbury, Surbiton, Sutton, Tadworth, Tandridge, Tatsfield, Tattenham Corner, Thornton Heath, Thorpe, Thursley, Tilford, Titsey, Tolworth, Tongham, Valley End, Chobham, Virginia Water, Waddon, Wallington, Walton on Thames, Walton on the Hill, Wanborough, Warlingham, West End, Westcott, Weston, Wimbledon, Windlesham, Wisley, Witley, Woking, Woldingham, Wonersh, Woodham, Woodmansterne, Woodside (Croydon), Worcester Park (Cheam Common), Worplesdon, Wotton, Wrecclesham, Wyke.
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