The Genealogist’s Internet
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The Genealogist’s Internet |
Former British colonies are genealogically important for British and Irish family history for three reasons: they have been the destination of emigrants from the British Isles (both voluntary and otherwise), the source of much immigration, and a place of residence and work for many British soldiers, merchants and others.
There is not space here to deal with internet resources relating to the individual countries, or to overseas records unrelated to immigration or emigration, but good places to start are Cyndi’s List at <www.cyndislist.com>, which has individual pages for all the countries or regions, and the GenWeb site for the country at <worldgenweb.org> (see p. 25). Genuki has links relating to both emigration and immigration at <www.genuki.org.uk/big/Emigration.html>. Resources relating to child migration are covered in ‘Adoption and child migration’ on p. 195.
For the official British records of emigration, The National Archives site has a range of resources. The ‘Research guides’ page at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/?research-category=family-history&sub-category%5B%5D=immigrants-emigrants-refugees> has a heading ‘Immigrants, emigrants and refugees’ linking to individual pages for Naturalised Britons, Emigrants, Internees, Immigrants, Passengers, and Passports. The research guide on ‘Emigrants’ is a comprehensive guide to official records of emigration, at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/emigration/>. The equivalent guide on immigration is at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/immigration/>.
While TNA’s material concentrates on the official records, broader coverage of immigration to Britain is provided by the Moving Here site at <www.movinghere.org.uk> (Figure 11-1). This has sections devoted to Caribbean, Irish, South Asian, and Jewish immigration to England over the past two centuries as well as the subsequent history of the immigrant communities. The site has a catalogue of resources as well as general historical material and individual historical testimony. There is specifically genealogical information for each of these immigrant groups in the ‘Tracing Your Roots gallery’ at <www.movinghere.org.uk/galleries/roots/>. These sections also include material on those who went from Britain to work in the colonies.
Figure 11-1: Material on South Asian migration from MovingHere
Wikipedia has a wealth of articles relating to the history of British colonies, which will provide some historical background and have useful bibliographical pointers. For example, there are over 200 articles on the history of New South Wales, listed at <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:History_of_New_South_ Wales>, which include pages devoted to individual convict ships. The best way to find such material is to start from the main page on the history of the particular modern country or from the ‘British Empire’ article. There are also articles on immigration into individual countries.
The National Library of Scotland has details of material held by the library relating to emigration from Scotland in its Scots Abroad databases at <digital.nls.uk/emigration/> and has a substantial listing of non-NLS resources, both in Britain and overseas, for Scottish emigration at <digital.nls.uk/emigration/resources/>.
There is a Museum of Immigration at Spitalfields in London which has a website at <www.19princeletstreet.org.uk>. The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum in Bristol has a website at <www.empiremuseum.co.uk> with information on the museum and its collections. The Migrations Museum Network at <www.migrationmuseum.org> has details of over two dozen migration museums around the world.
UntoldLondon at <www.untoldlondon.org.uk> ‘tells you where to look for the history of all of London’s races and faiths’, with details of and links to relevant material in archives and museums via the ‘Collections’ menu.
There are a number of general mailing lists relating to migration from and within the British Isles, including:
British-Genealogy has discussion forums for emigration and Jewish Roots at <www.british-genealogy.com/forums/>, and TalkingScot has discussion forums for Scottish emigration (including that to other parts of the British Isles) at <www.talkingscot.com/forum/> under the heading ‘Scots Abroad’.
There are also local resources relating to immigrant groups, and these are often part of a local history site, particularly in the case of major cities. For example, the PortCities sites at <www.portcities.org.uk> have material on the slave trade for Bristol and Liverpool, while for London there are individual sections devoted to the roles of Chinese, Scandinavian, Jewish, Bengali, Goan, Swahili, Somali and Portuguese communities in the life of the port. The Old Bailey Proceedings site has some very substantial articles about individual immigrant communities in the capital at <www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Communities.jsp>.
One problem in finding online resources relating to immigration is that search engines will find predominantly materials relating to current immigration practices and issues, and it is much more difficult to identify historical materials by this method. For that reason, it is generally more productive to follow the links from the specialist genealogical and historical sites mentioned in this chapter.
Key general records for emigration from the British Isles are passenger lists, and there are a number of sites with information about surviving passenger lists, or with data transcribed from them. Cyndi’s List has a ‘Ships and Passenger Lists’ page at <www.cyndislist.com/ships>. Among other information, this has links to many passenger lists and lists of ship arrivals. Passenger lists specifically for emigration to North America and Australia are covered in more detail below.
The Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild at <www.immigrantships.net> has transcribed over 11,000 passenger lists and is adding more all the time. These can be searched by date, by port of departure, port of arrival, passenger name or captain’s name. In addition to its own material, the ‘Compass’ area of the site at <immigrantships.net/newcompass/pcindex.html> has an enormous collection of links to other passenger list sites.
The Scottish Emigration Database at <www.abdn.ac.uk/emigration> contains the records of over 21,000 passengers who embarked at Glasgow and Greenock for non-European ports between 1 January and 30 April 1923, and at other Scottish ports between 1890 and 1960.
Ancestorsonboard at <www.ancestorsonboard.com> is Findmypast’s pay-per-view passenger list site, with 24 million records derived from The National Archives’ Outward Bound Passenger Lists (series BT 27, Figure 11-2). These records are also accessible from the main site at <www.findmypast.co.uk>, which has, additionally, UK Passport Applications 1851—1903. All these records are also available on Genes Reunited.
Figure 11-2: Passengers travelling to New Zealand, 1927 (Findmypast)
Ancestry UK has a large number of databases relating to migration, many drawn from published works on English, Scots and Irish migration to North America. While most of the material discussed here concerns those leaving the British Isles, Ancestry also has a database of UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878–1960, drawn from The National Archives’ BT 26 series and Alien Arrivals, 1810–1811, 1826–1869 from various TNA document series. There is a name search, and you can also browse the records by port, year and ship. This material is not just a source for immigrants — it also captures those returning from working abroad. All of these are listed in the Ancestry Card Catalogue at <www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/catalog/> — use the ‘Filter by Collection’ option to select ‘Immigration & Travel’.
Origins has British and Irish Passenger Lists for 1890 and 1891 (see <www.origins.net/help/aboutbo-passenger.aspx>) which include ships to North American destinations. This dataset comprises the records in BT 27, also found on Findmypast, supplemented by additional Canadian records. This is available to both British Origins and Irish Origins subscribers, but Irish Origins also has passenger lists for ships returning to Britain and Ireland from North America between 1858 and 1870 from the National Archives of Ireland (see <www.origins.net/help/aboutio-migration.aspx>).
There are a number of mailing lists for emigrant ships, but the most general is TheShipsList, which has its own website at <www.theshipslist.com>. SHIPS_FROM_ENGLAND has similar coverage, though with an emphasis on the British Colonies of North America — details are at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/
other/Immigration/SHIPS_FROM_ENGLAND.html>. Other lists relating to emigration and immigration will be found at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_emi.html>.
The earliest British migrants to North America were either voluntary settlers or transported convicts, though American independence eventually put a stop to the latter. Of course, independence did not put a stop to immigration from Britain and particularly Ireland.
In addition to the North America section in its general emigration guide, mentioned above, The National Archives has two research guides on the UK’s official records relating to British North America and the United States, linked from <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/>: ‘America and West Indies: Colonies before 1782’ and ‘American Revolution’.
The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has comprehensive information on US immigration records at <www.archives.gov/research/immigration/> and naturalization records at <www.archives.gov/research/naturalization/>.
For other links relating to emigration to North America, the best starting point is the ‘Immigration and Naturalization’ page on Cyndi’s List at <www.cyndislist.com/immigration>.
US sites of course have a wealth of data relating to immigrants. For the early period of settlement, Ancestry at <www.ancestry.com> has several databases in addition to the passenger lists mentioned above:
A number of immigration datasets are included in a subscription to Ancestry’s UK record collection, but for most a subscription to the US Discovery Collection or the Worldwide Membership is required (see p. 52).
There are many sites devoted to the earliest settlers. Pilgrim Ship Lists at <www.packrat-pro.com/ships/shiplist.htm> has details of over 7,100 families and 250 ships between 1602 and 1638. There are also sites devoted to particular groups of settlers, such as Caleb Johnson’s MayflowerHistory.com at <www.mayflowerhistory.com>. Wikipedia has details for many individual Mayflower settlers and indeed has many articles relating to the early settlement of North America and notable individual settlers.
In addition to the general passenger list sites mentioned above, there are a number of major databases for ships carrying immigrants to the USA. NARA has a page at <www.archives.gov/research/immigration/passenger-arrival.html> devoted to ‘Ship Passenger Arrival Records and Land Border Entries’ (not all of which, of course, constitute immigration) covering the various types of record. The most significant databases are:
A smaller index, The Immigrant Servants Database at <www.immigrantservants.com> includes details of over 18,000 immigrants identifiable from published records as indentured servants up to 1820.
Harvard has more general historical materials relating to post-independence immigration (i.e. not records of named individuals) at <ocp.hul.harvard.edu/immigration/> on its ‘Immigration to the United States, 1789—1930’ site.
Needless to say, Cyndi’s List has hundreds of further links relating to immigration to the United States at <www.cyndislist.com/immigration/>.
There is less material online for Canada. Marjorie Kohli’s Immigrants to Canada site at <www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/thevoyage.html> has an extensive collection of material, and links to many related resources. The National Archives of Canada has information on immigration and citizenship at <library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/research-help/genealogy-family-history/Pages/genealogy-family-history.aspx>, covering both border entry and passenger lists. There is a pilot online database for the passenger list records for the years 1925—35 at <www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/immigration-1925/index-e.html>. The inGeneas site at <www.inGeneas.com> also has a database of passenger lists and immigration records: the National Archives of Canada Miscellaneous Immigration Index is free; the index to other material can be searched free, but there is a charge for record transcriptions.
Resources relating to the British Home Children settled in Canada will be found on p. 251.
Latin America has been a much less significant destination for British settlers, but the Glaniad site at <www.glaniad.com> provides information on the Welsh in Patagonia. TNA’s Your Archives wiki has a detailed list of the official documents relating to this group of emigrants at <yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Welsh_Colony_in_Patagonia>. Information on emigration to Argentina and Uruguay will be found on the British Settlers in Argentina site at <www.argbrit.org>, which has extracts from both local Protestant church registers and a range of other records.
After the United States gained their independence from Britain in 1783, a new destination was required for the undesirables sentenced by the courts to transportation.
There are extensive materials online relating both to convict transportation to Australia, and to later free emigration to Australia and New Zealand. Good starting points are the Australia and New Zealand pages on Cyndi’s List at <www.cyndislist.com/Australia/> and <www.cyndislist.com/new-zealand/> respectively. Another worthwhile site is the Australian Family History Compendium, which has a list of online sources at <www.cohsoft.com.au/afhc/>. For information on the official records held by the British state, see The National Archives’ Research Guides.
The University of Wollongong has a database of the First Fleet convicts <firstfleet.uow.edu.au>, with details of crime and conviction, and much supporting material about the fleet. The First Fleet 1788 site at <www.jag10.freeserve.co.uk/1788.htm> includes officials and marines as well as convicts, and also lists the provisions carried on the supply ships. Convicts to Australia at <convictcentral.com> has extensive material on the transported convicts, including the names of all those on the first, second, and third fleets, and details of later convict ships to the various states. Convict Records of Australia at <www.convictrecords.com.au> has a searchable and browsable database of the convicts in the Convict Transportation Register (HO 11) at the UK National Archives.
The National Archives of Ireland has a database of Transportation Records 1788–1868 at <findingaids.nationalarchives.ie/index.php?category=18&subcategory=147> (Figure 11-3) along with information on the transportation of Irish convicts at <www.nationalarchives.ie/article/penal-transportation-records-ireland-australia-1788-1868/>.
Figure 11-3: An entry from the National Archives of Ireland’s Transportation Records
Australian government agencies have much information relating to convicts and free settlers online. The National Archives of Australia (NAA) website at <www.naa.gov.au> has a section devoted to ‘Migration, citizenship and travel’ at <www.naa.gov.au/help-your-research/research-guides/>, which includes information on the relevant records and their locations, with links to a wide range of further fact-sheets and research guides. The NAA’s Record Search includes, in addition to a general name search, a Passenger Arrivals Index at <www.naa.gov.au/explore-collection/immigration-and-citizenship/passenger-arrival-records> covering those arriving by ship in Fremantle and other Western Australian ports between 1921 and 1949 or arriving at Perth airport between 1944 and 1949. In the same search, you need to select ‘Immigration and naturalisation records’.
FamilySearch (see p. 41) has around a dozen record collections for Australia and New Zealand, including indexes and images for the Index to Bounty Immigrants Arriving in N.S.W., 1828–1842 and New Zealand, Immigration Passenger Lists, 1855–1973.
Ancestry Australia at <www.ancestry.com.au> has a substantial collection of databases relating to convicts and free settlers, including:
These are also available to those with a Worldwide Membership.
Findmypast launched a data service for Australia and New Zealand records at <www.findmypast.com.au> in May 2010, taking over WorldVitalRecords’ Australian site. There are over 600 datasets including electoral rolls and government gazettes for both Australia and New Zealand. The only material specifically related to immigration is Convict Arrivals in New South Wales 1788–1842.
There are also relevant resources on the websites of the individual states. For example, the Victoria Public Record Office has several online indexes including passenger lists and convict registers, all linked from <access.prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/explore-topic/family-history>. The Archives Office of Tasmania has a number of name indexes at <librariestas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/names> which include convicts, arrivals and naturalizations. There is also a Colonial Tasmanian Family Link Database at <portal.archives. tas.gov.au/menu.aspx?search=8> with about 500,000 entries about Tasmanian families. New South Wales has a large number of online indexes, half a dozen relating to immigration and five relating to convicts, linked from <mhnsw.au/archive/subjects/?filter=indexes>.
About.com has an excellent collection of links to Australian resources including ‘Top Databases & Web Sites for Australian Genealogy’ at <www.thoughtco.com/new-south-wales-genealogy-online-1421658>.
SCAN (see p. 206) provides material on the role of the Highland and Island Emigration Society in promoting Scottish emigration to Australia in the 1850s, together with searchable passenger lists, at <www.scan.org.uk/researchrtools/emigration.htm> (note the ‘r’ after ‘research’).
The Australian Society of Archivists has a comprehensive ‘Directory of Archives in Australia’ at <directory.archivists.org.au/archives/>, with descriptions and links.
Archives New Zealand’s website at <www.archives.govt.nz> includes a ‘Migration’ research guide at <www.archives.govt.nz/research-guidance/research-guides/citizenship-and-migration/migration>. The Registrar General’s site at <www.bdm.govt.nz> has information on births, deaths and marriages but no online data.
The online Encyclopedia of New Zealand at <www.teara.govt.nz> has considerable material relating to settlement, with sections devoted to particular communities. There is extensive coverage of English, Scots, Welsh and Irish settlement.
There are dozens of mailing lists for Australian and New Zealand genealogy, all listed at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-aus.html> and <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_country-nez.html>. The main general lists are AUSTRALIA, NEW-ZEALAND, and GENANZ, while the remainder are devoted to specific topics: AUS-CONVICTS, AUS-IMMIGRATION-SHIPS, AUS-IRISH, AUS-MILITARY, AUS-NSW-COLONIAL-HISTORY, convicts-australia, TRANSCRIPTIONS-AUS and TRANSCRIPTIONS-NZ. There are also lists for individual states, regions, and even towns.
A good starting point for researching Black British ancestry is the BBC’s History site, which offers an introduction to Caribbean family history by Kathy Chater at <www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/get_started/caribbean_01.shtml> and the more detailed ‘Researching African-Caribbean Family History’ by Guy Grannum at <www.bbc.co.uk/history/familyhistory/next_steps/genealogy_article_01.shtml>. Both provide historical background and the second discusses the relevant records in some detail. TNA has pages devoted to ‘Caribbean Histories Revealed’ at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/caribbeanhistory/>, which provides information about the region and the migrations to and from it, with an extensive collection of links and a very substantial bibliography. ‘Black Presence. Asian and Black History in Britain 1500–1850’ is another National Archives site at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/black-presence/> which provides a concise introduction to the historical background of migration from the Caribbean and the Indian subcontinent.
CaribbeanGenWeb at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~caribgw/> has areas devoted to each of the islands of the Caribbean. Though there are considerable differences in scope, as each island site has its own maintainer, all have message boards to make contact with other researchers, and many have substantial collections of links. You should also find information on civil registration, parish registers and other records. Another useful collection of genealogy links for the Caribbean will be found on the Candoo site at <www.candoo.com/genresources/>, including lists of relevant microfilms in the LDS Church’s Family History Centers.
For the records of the slave trade the best starting point after Guy Grannum’s article, mentioned above, is TNA’s ‘Looking for records of slavery or slave owners’ page at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/looking-for-person/slaves-and-slave-owners.htm>. A research guide on ‘Slavery: British transatlantic slave trade’ will be found at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides-keywords/?show=keywords&keyword-letter=s&keyword=slavery#step-three>.
As yet, few records of slavery for British colonies have been digitized, but the Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies (TNA document series T 71), with almost three million names, are available on Ancestry. The Your Archives wiki has detailed information on these registers at <yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Slave_registers> along with many other articles on slavery and related topics, all listed at <yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Category:Slavery>, covering both the historical background and the records of the trade.
As mentioned above, the PortCities sites for Bristol and Liverpool, linked from <www.portcities.org.uk>, have material on the slave trade centred on these ports, while the London site has pages devoted to the capital’s Somali and Swahili-speaking communities.
The Parliament website had extensive historical material on ‘Parliament and the British Slave Trade 1600–1807’ at <www.parliament.uk/slavetrade/>. TNA has materials on slavery and its abolition at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/abolition-slavery/>.
For convict transportation to the West Indies, see The National Archives’ Research Guides mentioned under ‘The Americas’, above.
While there is still relatively little specifically genealogical material online for those with Black British ancestry, the web offers an increasing amount of general historical information relating to black immigration and the history of black communities in Britain.
Resources relating to the BBC’s Windrush season, broadcast in 1998, at <www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/windrush_01.shtml> include a factfile and oral testimony from those who came to Britain on the Windrush. This is part of the ‘Multiculture’ area of the BBC’s site which has a range of material relating to Black History and the British Empire.
It’s worth using a search engine for the phrase ‘black history’ with the name of a town or county you are interested in. This will turn up sites such as Birmingham Black History at <www.birminghamblackhistory.com>, Brighton and Hove Black History at <www.black-history.org.uk>, or Norfolk Black History Month at <www.norfolkblackhistorymonth.org>.
One of the most significant local projects is the Black and Asian Londoners Project (BAL), run by the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA). It aims to create an online database of Black and Asian Londoners between 1536 and 1840, with names and area of residence based on information from church registers, family papers in the LMA and material from the British Library and the India Office. The home page is at <www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-heritage/london-metropolitan-archives/about-lma/switching-the-lens-project> and the database can be searched on name, street, borough, place of origin, or occupation. The results of a search are images of the original records — Figure 11-4 shows the baptism of William Antonio, ‘an African’, at St Peter, Regent Square.
Figure 11-4: The Black and Asian Londoners database
CASBAH is a project which aims to identify and map national research resources relevant to Caribbean studies and the history of Black and Asian peoples in Britain. The CASBAH website at <www.casbah.ac.uk>, while aimed primarily at academic researchers, is useful to anyone researching Black History in Britain because it provides links to around 120 other websites, particularly libraries, with relevant collections. A number of organizations have useful websites, for example the Black Cultural Archives, ‘the first national institution dedicated to commemorating and celebrating the experiences of people of African and African-Caribbean descent in Britain’ at <bcaheritage.org.uk> and the Black and Asian Studies Association <www.blackandasianstudies.org>.
The Open Directory’s African-British page at <dmoz.org/Society/Ethnicity/African/African-British/> is another starting point for web resources relating to African and Afro-Caribbean immigration into Britain, though the listing does not specialize in genealogical sources.
The Caribbean Surnames Index (CARSURDEX) at <www.candoo.com/surnames/> offers a discussion forum where users can post details of the families they are researching. The postings can be read by anyone but registration (free) is required to respond, post a message yourself or contact others.
The main mailing list for West Indian ancestry is CARIBBEAN — see <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Newsgroup_Gateways/CARIBBEAN.html>. The GEN-AFRICAN list (see <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Newsgroup_Gateways/GEN-AFRICAN.html>) covers the genealogy of Africa and the African diaspora. The CARIBBEAN-FREEDMEN and ENGLAND-FREEDMEN mailing lists may be of interest to descendants of freed slaves. Details of both are linked from <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Ethnic-African/>.
There are message boards for Africa and the Caribbean on RootsWeb at <www.ancestry.com/boards/localities.africax> and <www.ancestry.com/boards/localities.caribbean> respectively, with individual boards for all the modern countries and islands. Boards for a more limited range of countries will be found at GenForum, linked from <genforum.genealogy.com/regional/countries/>.
Initially the genealogical significance of the Indian subcontinent for Britain was as the temporary home of many young men in the army, trade, or colonial administration, with those who chose to remain giving rise to an Anglo-Indian population. Since independence, that flow has been reversed.
A number of the resources mentioned in the previous section cover Asian immigration to Britain as well as Black immigration. The British Library site is one of the most useful for ancestors from the British Isles who lived or worked in India, as it includes the India Office website. This has pages for family historians at <www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpregion/asia/india/indiaofficerecordsfamilyhistory/familyresearch.html>, with information on the various types of genealogical source. The India Office Family History Search at <indiafamily.bl.uk> has a database of 300,000 births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials in the India Office Records, mainly for Europeans, for the period 1600–1949. Following the links to ‘Sources’ leads to a list of the original documents extracted.
Apart from the British Library, the most important site for the British in India is that of the Families in British India Society at <www.fibis.org> with a free online database of selected records of the India Office and East India Company held by the British Library and elsewhere. The records include transcriptions of civil, ecclesiastical, maritime and military records covering the period from 1737 to 1947. Amongst over 700,000 records are details of ships sailing to India, and their occupants, plus births, marriages and deaths of persons in British-administrated territories in India. Many records relate to soldiers of the Indian Army and the British Army regiments which served in India. The database can be searched from <search.fibis.org>. The FIBIWiki at <wiki.fibis.org> provides research guides, lists sources, and provides general background information about the culture, society and history of India during the period of British rule.
For general and local information about British India, an invaluable resource is the 1909 edition of the Imperial Gazetteer of India available in the University of Chicago’s Digital South Asia Library at <dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer/>. It covers the whole of the Indian Empire, not just India itself, and has comprehensive introductory material as well as gazetteer entries for individual places.
Findmypast at <www.findmypast.co.uk> (see p. 53) has a number of datasets relating to British India, including:
Military sites mentioned in Chapter 10 may have information about the British Army in India.
The Honorable East India Co site at <www.honeastindiaco.com> had birth, marriage and death notices of people who worked for or were associated with the Company, collected from various newspapers and publications. It is now available only at the Wayback Machine (7 February 2011). Wikipedia has many links to web resources relating to the company, linked from its ‘East India Company’ article.
The National Archives’ research guide to ‘Family History Sources for Indian Indentured Labour’ at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/indian-indentured-labourers/> explains the practice of sending Indian labourers to sugar-producing colonies and gives guidance on the official records.
The British Library has a whole set of pages devoted to ‘Asians in Britain’ at <www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/history/history/asiansinbritain/asiansinbritain.html>, including an outline of Asian immigration and contemporary material from various walks of life. TNA materials relating to Black and Asian Britons have been mentioned above.
For a general historical introduction to the British Asian community, see Wikipedia’s articles on ‘British Asian’ and ‘British Indian’, which also have links to articles on related topics and individual subgroups. The first of these pages also has a list of the main South Asian communities with links to the articles for the relevant towns and cities. For the capital, PortCities London at <www.portcities.org.uk/london/> has material on the Bengali and Goan communities — follow the ‘Port communities’ link.
Local history sites for major cities are always worth checking. For example, the Liverpool Museums site hosts material on ‘The Indian Presence in Liverpool’ at <www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/hamlyn/ip/> with photos, biographies, and recordings of the immigrant families who came to the city in the twentieth century.
There are two genealogical mailing lists relevant to the Indian subcontinent, BANGLADESH and INDIA. Details will be found at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/BGD/BANGLADESH.html> and <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/IND/INDIA.html> respectively. RootsWeb hosts genealogical mailing lists for a number of other Asian countries, listed at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/>. There is also an INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ list, though this is devoted to general historical and cultural topics rather than to genealogical issues as such. Subscription details and a link to the archive of messages will found at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/IND/INDIA-BRITISH-RAJ.html>.
For guidance about immigrants to Britain from continental Europe, the best starting points are the pages for the relevant country at Cyndi’s List (p. 24) and WorldGenweb (p. 25) and the general immigration sites given at the start of this chapter. However, three particularly significant groups with a distinct identity in the British Isles long after migration are covered here in more detail.
There are many sites devoted to Jewish genealogy, though not many are specifically concerned with British Jewry. A general history of Jews in Britain is provided in Shira Schoenberg’s Virtual Jewish History Tour, which has a page devoted to England at <www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/England.html>. JewishGen at <www.jewishgen.org> is a very comprehensive site with a number of resources relevant to Jewish ancestry in the British Isles. These include an old but still useful article on researching Jewish ancestry at <www.jewishgen.org/infofiles/ukgen.txt>, and the London Jews Database <www.jewishgen.org/databases/UK/londweb.htm>, which has over 9,000 names, taken principally from London trade directories. (Jeffrey Maynard, who compiled this database, has a number of other small datasets on his Anglo-Jewish Miscellanies site at <www.jeffreymaynard.com>.) The site also hosts JCR-UK at <www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk>, a comprehensive guide to Jewish communities and records in the UK and Ireland, with information on synagogues in each locality.
The Jewish genealogical magazine Avotaynu has a ‘Five-minute Guide to Jewish Genealogical Research’ at <www.avotaynu.com/jewish_genealogy.htm>. The National Archives has a research guide ‘Anglo-Jewish History, 18th—20th Centuries: Sources in The National Archives’ online at <www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/anglo-jewish-history-18th-20th.htm>. The Jewish Historical Society of England at <www.jhse.org> has a few general articles and a useful ‘Chronology of the Jews in Britain’. The site’s bibliographies and links will direct you to further sources of information. As usual, Cyndi’s List has a good collection of links at <www.cyndislist.com/jewish/>.
The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain’s website at <www.jgsgb.org.uk>, has a substantial collection of links to Jewish material in Britain and worldwide. Avotaynu has a Consolidated Jewish Surname Index at <www.avotaynu.com/csi/csi-home.htm> with over half a million names. There is a varied collection of material relating to London Jews on Jeffrey Maynard’s site at <www.jeffreymaynard.com>.
FamilySearch hosts the Knowles Collection of Jewish Families, which includes a dataset for the British Isles compiled by Isobel Mordy. This can be searched from the Community Trees area of the site at <www.familysearch.org/search/genealogies/submission/8/MMD6-PK1>.
The United Synagogue website has a ‘Find Your Family’ section at <www.theus.org.uk/support_services/find_your_family/> with indexes of burial and marriage authorization records.
For research into the continental origins of British Jewish families the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) at <www.jewishgen.org/jgff/> should be of use. This is a ‘database of ancestral towns and surnames currently being researched by Jewish genealogists worldwide’, with around 120,000 surnames submitted by 90,000 Jewish genealogists.
For details of Jewish archives in the UK, consult the University of Southampton’s ‘Survey of Jewish archives in the UK and Ireland’ at <www.southampton.ac.uk/archives/resources/surveys/jewishsurveyintro.page> which gives details and locations. There are two sites devoted to particular archives:
There are two general Jewish mailing lists: the JEWISHGEN list, hosted by JewishGen at <www.jewishgen.org/JewishGen/DiscussionGroup.htm> and RootsWeb’s JEWISH-ROOTS list at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Religion/JEWISH-ROOTS.html>. John Fuller lists another three dozen mailing lists for Jewish genealogy at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jfuller/gen_mail_jewish.html>, but these are all specific to particular geographical areas, whether as sources of emigration, or as destinations of migrants. A similar list is at Cyndi’s List, <www.cyndislist.com/jewish/mailing-lists/>. Only one list is specifically relevant to Jewish communities in the British Isles, the BRITISH-JEWRY mailing list, details of which are at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Ethnic-Jewish/BRITISH-JEWRY.html>. The list has its own separate website at <www.british-jewry.org.uk> with a number of small databases. There is also a Jewish Roots forum on British-Genealogy at <www.british-genealogy.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=187>.
The regional Jewish newspaper The Jewish Telegraph has a ‘Roots Directory at <jewishtelegraph.com/roots.html> where people can post contact messages.
Around 50,000 French protestants fled religious persecution and settled in England and Ireland in the seventeenth century. Cyndi’s List has links to Huguenot resources at <www.cyndislist.com/huguenot>, while basic information on the Huguenots will be found on Olive Tree Genealogy at <olivetreegenealogy.com/hug/overview.shtml>.
The Huguenot Society of Great Britain & Ireland has a website at <www.huguenotsociety.org.uk>. The ‘Family History’ section has a number of research guides, which provide detailed information on the relevant records. Although the society’s library, the Huguenot Library, is temporarily located at The National Archives, it will in due course return to its original home at University College, London. Details of the library holdings will therefore be found in UCL’s online catalogue at <www.ucl.ac.uk/library> and in COPAC (see p. 220) at <copac.ac.uk>, while the archival material can be found with the UCL Archives search at <archives.ucl.ac.uk>. UCL also has general information about the Huguenot Library at <www.ucl.ac.uk/library/special-collections/huguenot>.
There are also sites with local information: the Institute of Historical Research has pages on the French Protestant Church of London at <ihr.sas.ac.uk/ihr/associnstits/huguenots.mnu.html>, and the Church has its own French-language site at <www.egliseprotestantelondres.org.uk> with a section on the history of the Church and of French Protestants in England. The England GenWeb Project has comprehensive material on Cambridgeshire Huguenots at <www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engcam/HuguenotsandWalloons.htm> with a list of surnames, and Hidden Dublin has a list of the names on the memorial tablet in Dublin’s Huguenot Cemetery at <www.hidden-dublin.com/huguenot/huguenot2.html>.
The mailing list for Huguenot ancestors is HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE, hosted at RootsWeb. Subscription details and the message archive are at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Religion/HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE.html>. The Huguenot Surnames Index at <www.aftc.com.au/Huguenot/Hug.html> will enable you to make contact with others researching particular Huguenot families.
There are two starting points on the web for British gypsy ancestry. The Romany & Traveller Family History Society site at <www.rtfhs.org.uk>, apart from society information (including a list of contents for recent issues of its magazine), has a page on ‘Was Your Ancestor a Gypsy?’. This lists typical gypsy surnames, forenames and occupations. The site also has a good collection of links to other gypsy material on the web. The Gypsy Lore Society Collections at the University of Liverpool site at <sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/colldescs/gypsy/> has information about, and photographs of, British gypsy families as well as a collection of links to other gypsy sites.
Romani.org at <www.romani.org> is a general site devoted to the Romani people, and there is an online publication for Romani culture and history, The Patrin Web Journal, at <geocities.restorativland.org/Paris/5121/>. BBC Kent has a Romany Roots site at <www.bbc.co.uk/kent/romany_roots/>. Although it has no specifically genealogical material, there are many articles on Romany history and culture, and the message board is used for genealogical queries. Another Kent site is Gypsies, Travellers And Other Itinerants In Kent at <freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gypsy/gypsy.htm>, which includes many extracts from parish records. The Romany Wales project at <www.valleystream.co.uk/romhome.htm> has information on the Romany people in Wales, with histories of a number of individual families.
Figure 11-5: The Romany Wales Project
Wikipedia has a wide range of articles on Romany history and culture. The best starting point is the ‘Romnichal’ article. George Borrow’s Lavengro, the well-known semi-autobiographical account of nineteenth-century gypsy life, is available at a number of electronic book sites, and there are links from the Wikipedia’s ‘Lavengro’ article.
There is a UK-ROMANI mailing list for British gypsy family history, details of which will be found at <lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/other/Ethnic-Romani/UK-ROMANI.html>. Ancestry’s Gypsy message board will be found at <boards.ancestry.co.uk/topics.ethnic.gypsy/mb.ashx>. British-Genealogy has a Romanies forum at <www.british-genealogy.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=424>.
Cyndi’s List has links to further genealogical resources at <www.cyndislist.com/gypsy/> in the category ‘Gypsy, Romani, Romany & Travellers’.
Next chapter: 12 Print Sources
This version of The Genealogist’s Internet by Peter Christian is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 
