The Genealogist’s Internet
The Genealogist’s Internet |
Entries in italics are general online developments, not specifically of genealogical importance.
| 1983 | October 31st | First genealogy newsgroup: net.roots |
| 1985 | July | Creation of the .uk top-level domain |
| 1986 | September 20th | First posting to soc.roots, replacement for net.roots |
| 1987 | December 12th | ROOTS-L — first genealogy mailing list |
| 1990 | April 7th | Roots Surname List announced |
| 1990 | December | Hytelnet — directory of telnet sites, including many library catalogues |
| 1990 | December | Remote access to National Register of Archives |
| 1991 | August 6th | World-Wide Web publicly released |
| 1991 | November | JANET IP service: UK universities start to connect directly to the Internet (most early UK genealogy sites are hosted on university servers) |
| 1991 | December | Launch of Genserv, e-mail based GEDCOM matching service |
| 1993 | June | Alan Stanier puts STANIER family tree online — first personal UK family tree online? |
| 1993 | November 11th | Mosaic 1.0 browser for Windows and Mac released (a UNIX version had been released in April) |
| 1993 | December 6th | FTP archive at Penn State University makes genealogy software available for download |
| 1994 | April 28th | Paddy Waldron sets up Irish genealogy pages on the Trinity College Dublin web site |
| 1994 | May 31st | Frode Kvam posts source code for GECDOM -> HTML conversion program to ROOTS-L |
| 1994 | July 10th | Gene Stark announces GED2HTML, a program to create an on-line pedigree from a GEDCOM file |
| 1994 | July 16th | The Genealogy Home Page — first directory of internet genealogy resources |
| 1994 | July | Channel Island Surname Interest List — first UK surname interest list? |
| 1994 | November 9th | Launch of HM Treasury web site — first UK government department on-line |
| 1994 | November 14th | Reorganization of genealogy newsgroups into the soc.genealogy hierarchy |
| 1994 | December 7th | North of Ireland FHS web site — first FHS web site? |
| 1994 | December 8th | Inaugural meeting of the Archives and Internet Group |
| 1994 | December | Genserv moves to the Web |
| 1994 | December | Launch of .Net and Internet — the first UK Internet magazines |
| 1995 | January | Phil Stringer publishes "Online genealogy information about the UK", the forerunner of Genuki |
| 1995 | February | 2% sample of 1851 census available for download by FTP |
| 1995 | February | John Fuller and Chris Gaunt launch Genealogy Resources on the Internet |
| 1995 | March 7th | PRO leaflets made available on Malcolm Austen's web site (later moved to Genuki) |
| 1995 | March 25th | The Web overtakes file transfer (FTP) as the main use of the Internet |
| 1995 | March | Announcement of Genuki on soc.genealogy.computing |
| 1995 | April | Historical Manuscripts Commission |
| 1995 | April | Manchester and Lancashire mailing list started |
| 1995 | June | soc.genealogy.uk+ireland — first newsgroup for genealogy of the British Isles |
| 1995 | June | Elizabeth Powell Crowe, Genealogy On-line — first internet genealogy book? |
| 1995 | July 1st | Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 1.0 |
| 1995 | July | Dr Ashton Emery's A-Z of British Genealogical Research |
| 1995 | September 15th | Demon Internet announces local call access for the whole of the UK |
| 1995 | October | Genuki is by now hosting pages for a number of family history societies (including Clywd, Devon, Dyfed and Gwynedd) |
| 1995 | October | National Archives of Ireland Family History & Genealogy page |
| 1995 | October | Historical Manuscripts Commission web site; telnet access to the National Register of Archives. |
| 1995 | November | FFHS publications catalogue made available on Genuki |
| 1995 | December 15th | Thompson one-name study |
| 1995 | December | Archives Online |
| 1995 | December | Mailing lists for some individual Scottish clans in existence |
| 1995 | December | AltaVista, first major search engine |
| 1996 | January 15th | First issue of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter |
| 1996 | January | GooNS web site |
| 1996 | February 20th | Lottery Grant for Images of England |
| 1996 | February | David Hawgood: "Internet for Genealogy" — first UK internet genealogy book? |
| 1996 | February | Launch of the RootsWeb "genealogy co-operative" |
| 1996 | March 4th | Cyndi's List |
| 1996 | March 14th | Somerset Record Office becomes first UK record office to launch a web site |
| 1996 | March | National Library of Wales |
| 1996 | March | Society of Genealogists hosts its first lecture on the internet |
| 1996 | March | Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) Web site launched |
| 1996 | April 18th | Liverpool Record Office |
| 1996 | April | Pedigree Users Group starts a mailing list |
| 1996 | May | Greater Manchester CRO |
| 1996 | May | Lincolnshire Archives |
| 1996 | June | USGenWeb |
| 1996 | September 5th | Norfolk Surnames list |
| 1996 | October | Web site for Computers in Genealogy |
| 1996 | October | WorldGenWeb launched |
| 1996 | December | Ancestry.com launched |
| 1997 | April 9th | Books We Own — first lookup exchange? |
| 1997 | May | Society of Genealogists registers its domain name sog.org.uk |
| 1997 | May | Cheshire Wills on the Web |
| 1997 | June | British Library makes its catalogue accessible via the web |
| 1997 | June | Familia launched, with details of the genealogical holdings of public libraries in the British Isles |
| 1997 | July | Manorial Documents Register goes on-line with data for Wales and Yorkshire |
| 1997 | July | Britain and Ireland newsgroups split |
| 1997 | August | County Lookup Exchange announced |
| 1997 | October | Cyndi Howells, Netting Your Ancestors: Genealogical Research on the Internet |
| 1997 | November 4th | Guild of One-Name Studies domain name registered |
| 1997 | December | Genealogy programs start to include Web page creation facilities |
| 1998 | March 16th | FFHS registers its domain name ffhs.org.uk |
| 1998 | March 23rd | Society of Genealogists' web site |
| 1998 | March 26th | Public Record Office web site |
| 1998 | March 27th | Genuki registers its own domain name |
| 1998 | April 6th | Scots Origins launched with Scottish BMD certificates — first pay-per-view site for UK public records |
| 1998 | July 2nd | ARCHON Directory provides details of record repositories |
| 1998 | September 7th | FreeBMD announced |
| 1998 | September 15th | Society of Genealogists Bookshop online |
| 1998 | September 30th | Google launched |
| 1998 | November 11th | Debt of Honour Register — first complete on-line "genealogical" dataset to cover the whole of the UK |
| 1998 | December | National Register of Archives accessible via the Web |
| 1999 | January 18th | Genfair launched as an on-line shop with "stands" for individual family history societies |
| 1999 | January | Launch of Collage, Corporation of London image databse |
| 1999 | March 26th | Crown copyright waiver: genealogists can publish their own transcriptions of PRO documents without permission |
| 1999 | May 24th | Powys Digital History site (started june 1998) |
| 1999 | May | Launch of FamilySearch puts the IGI on-line |
| 1999 | July | Start of FreeCEN project |
| 2000 | January | Workhouse History site launched |
| 2000 | February | The Federation of Family History Societies registers its commercial domain name ffhs.co.uk |
| 2000 | March 19th | Rob Thompson starts his Family History Newsletter |
| 2000 | June | Old-maps |
| 2000 | June 12th | Launch of Federation of Family History Societies' on-line bookshop |
| 2000 | June 21st | RootsWeb acquired by Ancestry.com |
| 2000 | June 22nd | Failure of soc.genealogy.surnames newsgroups |
| 2000 | September 1st | UK Government portal UKonline launched |
| 2000 | October | Images of England launched |
| 2000 | October | New Genuki search engine, covering Genuki and other UK family history bodies |
| 2000 | October | Caroline Peacock: "Good Web Guide Genealogy" |
| 2000 | October | CheshireBMD — first UKBMD project |
| 2000 | November 24th | National Archives of Scotland web site launched |
| 2000 | November 30th | Scottish Archive Network goes live |
| 2000 | November | Genuki trade mark registration |
| 2000 | December 15th | FamilyRecords launched to provide a government genealogy portal |
| 2000 | December | British Library Newspaper Library’s catalogue goes online |
| 2000 | December | ARCHON Portal |
| 2001 | January 18th | GROS announces plans to add digital images to Scots Origins |
| 2001 | January 25th | Launch of Origins with data from the Society of Genealogists — first UK genealogy data service |
| 2001 | January | Cornwall Online Parish Clerks (OPC) project launched |
| 2001 | February 7th | Genuki becomes a charitable trust |
| 2001 | February 12th | Google takes over archive of newsgroup messages from Deja.com |
| 2001 | April 20th | 1891 census pilot goes live |
| 2001 | July 2nd | ARCHON Portal launched |
| 2001 | July | 150 digitisation grants announced by New Opportunities Fund, many for historical material of interest to genealogists, including Collect Britain, Digital Handsworth, Moving Here. |
| 2001 | August 6th | 1881 census index & 1891 census images added to Scots Origins |
| 2001 | August | General Register Office for Northern Ireland (GRONI) launches independent web site (original site was hosted by Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) |
| 2001 | November | Peter Christian: The Genealogist’s Internet |
| 2002 | January 2nd | NLS launches two on-line map collections |
| 2002 | January 7th | White Paper, 'Civil Registration: Vital Change' published by the Office of National Statistics, includes plans to move to electronic registration |
| 2002 | January 22nd | 1901 census |
| 2002 | January 22nd | 1901 census site closed down |
| 2002 | September 18th | Ancestry.co.uk launched with 1891 census |
| 2002 | September 18th | Scotlandspeople launched, taking over Scottish records from Scots Origins |
| 2002 | November 5th | 1901 census relaunch |
| 2002 | November 21st | GenesConnected (now Genesreunited) |
| 2003 | January 8th | FamilyHistoryOnline |
| 2003 | January | Gazettes on-line |
| 2003 | February 2nd | 1881 census added to FamilySearch |
| 2003 | February 25th | Merger of Genfair & FFHS Publications |
| 2003 | February 26th | SoG online bookshop closes |
| 2003 | February | GRO announces relaxation of rules on publication of BMD indexes from April 1st |
| 2003 | March 5th | Rod Neep launches British-genealogy.com, with dozens of new mailing lists for the UK |
| 2003 | March 14th | The National Archives’ DocumentsOnline |
| 2003 | March | Old Bailey Proceedings |
| 2003 | April 1st | The PRO and HMC combine to form the National Archives (TNA) (though their web sites are not combined till June 2004) |
| 2003 | April 1st | FreeBMD starts to include post-1900 events |
| 2003 | April 2nd | 1837online (now Findmypast) puts GRO indexes online |
| 2003 | July 8th | GRO launches on-line certificate ordering |
| 2003 | July | Launch of FreeCEN search engine with 1891 census transcriptions |
| 2003 | August | Launch of National Archivist |
| 2003 | September | Launch of Archives Network Wales |
| 2003 | November 14th | National Audit Office report on 1901 census |
| 2004 | January 26th | Ancestry starts on 1871 census |
| 2004 | March 1st | The Archives Task Force report Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future proposes the creation of an Archives Gateway |
| 2004 | March 24th | Launch of Directgov, replacing UKonline as government portal |
| 2004 | April 14th | Ancestry starts 1901 census |
| 2004 | April 22nd | End of GENDEX |
| 2004 | May | Launch of independent GRO site |
| 2004 | June 28th | FreeBMD adds images |
| 2004 | June 28th | The National Archives launch new web site |
| 2004 | July 23rd | Origins relaunched as subscription service under the name Origins Network |
| 2004 | July | DOVE (Digitisation of Vital Events) invitation to tender |
| 2004 | November 8th | First version of this timeline ;-) |
| 2004 | November 9th | A Vision of Britain Through Time |
| 2004 | December 3rd | The National Archives & Ancestry.co.uk launch the 1881 and 1891 census under the Licensed Internet Associateship (LIA) initiative |
| 2004 | December 31st | Genuki Family History News ceases publication |
| 2004 | December | The GRO's proposals for reform of Civil Registration are rejected by committees from both Houses of Parliament |
| 2005 | February 15th | 1837online launches 1861 census index and images |
| 2005 | March | 1841 Census Index launched on British Origins |
| 2005 | August 1st | DOVE contract signed — Siemens to digitise GRO records |
| 2005 | August 21st | Qinetiq sells 1901 Census to GenesReunited |
| 2005 | September 9th | LDS Church announces plan to digitise and index all its microfilmed records |
| 2005 | November 3rd | Channel 4 & the Imperial War Museum launch database of WW1 war memorials in connection with the "Lost Generation" TV series |
| 2005 | December 6th | Medway Archives put images of 90 Kent parish registers online |
| 2005 | December 6th | Announcement of agreement between the National Archives of Ireland and Library and Archives Canada to digitise Irish Census Records for 1901 and 1911. |
| 2005 | December 14th | GenesReunited (as part of FriendsReunited) bought by ITV |
| 2006 | January 10th | Ancestry makes images of the GRO indexes available free of charge |
| 2006 | January 18th | The National Archivist announces the acquisition of its datasets by 1837online |
| 2006 | March 4th | Cyndi's List celebrates its 10th anniversary |
| 2006 | April 20th | Scotlandspeople release the 1841 census index and images for Scotland. All Scottish censuses are now available online. |
| 2006 | April 22nd | Ancestry release the 1841 census index for England & Wales. All censuses are now available online. |
| 2006 | May 8th | The Genealogy & Heraldry Bill 2006 is presented to the Irish Parliament, proposing an online National Inventory of Genealogical Records |
| 2006 | September 16th | Ancestry put phone books for the Greater London area 1880-1984 online |
| 2006 | September 20th | Dick Eastman's first UK Genealogy Skypecast |
| 2006 | December 13th | In response to a Freedom of Information ruling, The National Archives announce that data from the 1911 Census will be available online from 2009 rather than 2012. |
| 2007 | January 8th | ONS announces that online searching of GRO indexes will start to be available from early 2008. |
| 2007 | January 11th | An online petition requesting improved access to the censuses and other archives closes with 225 signatories. |
| 2007 | January 16th | Findmypast launches the BT27 Outward Passenger Lists for 1890-99 on a new site, Ancestorsonboard. |
| 2007 | February 15th | British army World War One service and pension records go online at Ancestry |
| 2007 | February 23rd | The Federation of Family History Societies publishes its first online-only newsletter, EZine, replacing the printed 'Newsflash' |
| 2007 | March 8th | An online petition to reduce the classified period for census data from 100 years to 70 years closes with 23,602 signatories. |
| 2007 | May 5th | Findmypast announces the purchase of the online family tree software PedigreeSoft with the aim of integrating it within their site. |
| 2007 | May 14th | The National Archives launches its 'Your Archives' wiki |
| 2007 | September 1st | Images of non-conformist registers from TNA classes RG4 and RG5 go online at BMDregisters |
| 2007 | September 14th | FFHS announces that its datasets at FamilyHistoryOnline are to be transferred to FindMyPast |
| 2007 | December 4th | Irish 1911 census for Dublin goes online |
| 2008 | January 18th | ScotlandsPeople adds indexes to birth and death registrations up to 2006. |
| 2008 | January 22nd | Scotland Online buys Findmypast with aim of consolidating it with ScotlandsPeople |
| 2008 | July 3rd | FamilySearch, Findmypast and Origins announce a joint project to make UK census indexes available on FamilySearch and at Family History Centers. |
| 2008 | July 6th | Deceased Online launches an online database of municipal burials and cremations sourced from local authorities |
| 2008 | July 21st | It is announced that GROS will license data to sites other than ScotlandsPeople |
| 2008 | July | GRO announces delay in DOVE project after contract with Siemens is not renewed |
| 2008 | September 14th | FreeBMD reaches 200 million records |
| 2008 | October 7th | Scottish Coats of Arms are made available on Scotlandspeople, the first official heraldic records for the UK to go online |
| 2009 | January 13th | Irish civil registration indexes are made available on the FamilySearch Pilot site |
| 2009 | January 16th | Launch of the 1911 census for England and Wales |
| 2009 | January 23rd | Public Records Office for Northern Ireland catalogue (eCATNI) goes live |
| 2009 | February 5th | The National Archives of Scotland launch the official Scottish Register of Tartans |
| 2009 | March 2nd | Scottish death and burials from parish registers go online at ScotlandsPeople |
| 2009 | March 31st | Closure of FamilyHIstoryOnline |
| 2009 | June 9th | The 1911 census for England & Wales completed with the release of all Welsh counties |
| 2009 | August 6th | All counties available for the 1911 Census of Ireland |
| 2009 | August 28th | GenesReunited purchased from ITV by Brightsolid (ScotlandsPeople, Findmypast) |
| 2009 | September | FamilyRecords portal closes |
| 2009 | October 16th | The National Library of Wales makes over 190,000 Welsh wills available. |
| 2009 | November 2nd | The GRO announces the Digitisation and Indexing (D&I) Project to replace the stalled DOVE project |
| 2009 | November 6th | The Information Commissioner rules that the NHS must grant access to information in the 1939 National Identity Card Registration relating to people who are now deceased. |
| 2009 | November 9th | The Office of Fair Trading approves the purchase of Genes Reunited by Brightsolid (who run Scotlandspeople and Findmypast). |
| 2009 | November 25th | The Irish government launches www.irishgenealogy.ie with free access to1.3 million church records |
| 2009 | December 14th | The University of the West of England announces a research project for an online database of UK surnames |
| 2010 | May 19th | British Library and Brightsolid announce project to digitise up to 40 million pages of historic newspapers |
| 2010 | June 2nd | 1901 Census of Ireland goes online |
| 2010 | June 3rd | 1911 Census made available on GenesReunited |
| 2010 | September 13th | The GRO announces suspension of the Digitisation and Indexing Project pending the government's Comprehensive Spending Review |
| 2010 | November 5th | Ancestry & TheGenealogist announce joint project to make the 1911 census available on their sites |
| 2011 | March 2nd | Launch of the Open Genealogy Alliance |
| 2011 | March | Irish government makes a commitment to release the 1926 census as part of commemoration of the 1916 East Uprising. |
| 2011 | April 5th | 1911 Census for Scotland released on ScotlandsPeople |
| 2011 | May 5th | Launch of Findmypast Ireland |
| 2011 | November 29th | Launch of British Newspaper Archive |
| 2012 | April 2nd | The National Archives launch the Discovery service as a replacement for its existing catalogue and DocumentsOnline service. |
| 2012 | June 19th | Launch of Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLLCO) |
| 2012 | September 5th | People of Medieval Scotland launched (" a database of all known people of Scotland between 1093 and 1314") |
| 2012 | November 8th | The National Archives of Ireland launches the National Archives Genealogy Website |
| 2013 | March 5th | The Imperial War Museum makes its sound archive available online, with oral history material for the world wars. |
| 2013 | March 13th | Launch of Welsh Newspapers Online (National Library of Wales) |
| 2013 | March 18th | Family Tree goes live on the FamilySearch site (free, but requires registration) |
| 2013 | April 8th | The National Archives announces that the digitisation of the First World War unit diaries has been completed |
| 2014 | April 28th | The National Archives of Ireland adds pre-1901 census fragments and the 1841-1851 Census Search Forms to its census site. |
| 2014 | June 17th | Findmypast buys Origins.net |
| 2014 | July 3rd | The General Register Office of Ireland's enhanced indexes to civil registration records are placed online (and removed ten days later). |
| 2014 | September 30th | The Probate Service for England and Wales places an index to post-1996 wills online |
| 2015 | February 5th | UK Government agrees to allow the publication of information from Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates in England and Wales to be issued "otherwise than in the form of a certified copy". |
| 2015 | July 8th | The National Library of Ireland places the National Library of Ireland's entire collection of Catholic parish register microfilms online. |
| 2015 | July 15th | 1901censusonline, the site for the original 1901 census digitisation, closes. |
| 2015 | October | Scotland's National Probate Index online |
| 2015 | November 2nd | The 1939 Register of England and Wales goes online at Findmypast |
| 2015 | December | TheGenealogist completes collection of Tithe Maps for England and Wales |
| 2016 | February 7th | FriendsReunited closes |
| 2016 | February 26th | Partnership of FamilySearch with several commercial data services |
| 2016 | March | Findmypast indexes Irish parish register |
| 2016 | September 8th | ScotlandsPeople relaunches site |
| 2016 | September 26th | Irish historic BMD registers |
| 2016 | November 3rd | GRO launches new indexes for births and deaths |
| 2016 | November 17th | Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland |
| 2017 | May 26th | Cynefin project puts Welsh tithe maps online |
| 2017 | October | National Library of Scotland completes scanning 25" maps of England and Wales |
| 2017 | November | Scottish Court of Session Digital Archive launched |
| 2018 | February 18th | FamilySearch announces Digital-Image-Only Collections |
| 2018 | March | Imperial War Museum launches War Memorials Register |
| 2020 | May 21st | Closure of RootsWeb mailing lists |
| 2020 | October 23rd | Complete Anglican records for Wales at TheGenealogist |
| 2021 | March 17th | Kirk Sessions records at ScotlandsPeople |
| 2021 | September 21st | FamilySearch completes digitisation of microfilm holdings |
| 2022 | January 6th | 1921 census for England and Wales |
| 2022 | June 27th | Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland |
| 2022 | November 30th | 1921 census for Scotland |
| 2023 | July | GRO introduces instant access to historic birth and death records |
This version of The Genealogist’s Internet by Peter Christian is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 
