Spike our genealogy stats Wed October 22

Do you have family history research in the UK? Have you looked at the Discovery portal via The National Archives?  The public archives of the UK government contains over 1000 years of history with over 5% of its collection digitised. Download images of wills and probates, Army, Navy and Air Force records, Cabinet Records, pictures, photographs and more.

British Army war diaries 1914-1922 written by officers in the front line have now been digitised. These diaries give unprecedented access to daily movements and action in the trenches and beyond.

Yarra Plenty Regional Library subscribes to this e-resource and you can access it at home via your library card via the genealogy e-resources page of our website

We are encouraging researchers to come on board and search the website and download your records of interest on Wednesday October 22 2014  to spike our stats.  You can do this at home  via the library website with your library card or at any computer in your local library.

You may like to come along to Diamond Valley Library before and after our presentation on Blogging your genealogy at 1.30 pm.   Library staff will be available at 2.30 pm if you would like any assistance.

In early September a major upgrade took place.  It now enables archive users to search, browse and tag 32 million record descriptions of records held by The National Archives, alongside the collections of over 2,500 archives across the UK.  This opens up access to a wide range of collections and information for your family history research.  If you are a first time user read the comprehensive research guides to get started - and let us know about your discoveries. 

Access Discovery at home

Members of Yarra Plenty Regional Library can now access the UK National Archive’s Discovery service both in the library and remotely via the library website using their library card.

Over 5 % of the collection of the archives based in Kew (London) has now been digitised and is available online.  Popular records include medals, wills, Royal Navy Service records, RAF combat reports, Royal Marines’ service records and more.  

Recent additions to the service include naturalisation case papers.   These are naturalisation petitions completed by individuals applying to become British citizens between 1801 and 1871.

Not sure what you are looking for?  The National Archives also have a terrific series of research guides to get your research started.

To access Discovery and other genealogy e-resources go to www.yprl.vic.gov.au – Research – Genealogy – Genealogy e-resources

D for Documents Online

Catching up with the Family History through the Alphabet blogging challenge we come to D. D is for Documents Online soon to be known as Discovery.

Discovery is the new catalogue (still under development) of The National Archives, UK, AKA TNA –described as “over 20 million descriptions of records created by central government and the courts of law of England and Wales”.

Researchers can search the collections and download digital copies of records, where available. Currently over 5 % of the vast collection has been digitised and is a pay for view service but is available at Yarra Plenty Regional Library as a free e-resource for family history researchers, which can be accessed via our website in a library. Researchers are encouraged to save their search results on their portable USB drives. These will usually be in the form of a PDF or JPG image - for easy transfer to home computers.

Popular collections include, Royal Navy service records, medals, RAF combat reports, Royal Marines service records and wills (but deciphering the hand writing on some of these documents is another blog story!). See Wills & Probate Records

A search in the new Discovery can be refined by a filter beside the initial results list. Such as by operations, battles and campaigns or date or actual collection.

There is also an advanced search facility. Discovery will eventually replace Documents Online but for now you can access it here