Where can I get a copy of a birth/marriage/death certificate?
Is there a family history society for the area I am researching?
Where can I get a copy of a will?
Where can I get a copy of a census return and what will it tell me?
How can I find out if someone else is researching the same surname?
There wasn’t a church in the place where my family lived before the mid 19th century. Where would family members have been baptised/married/buried?
What are Bishops Transcripts (BTs)?
Where can I trace information about an adopted child?
My ancestor served in the police. Do you keep police service records?
My ancestor was in prison / in hospital at the time of the census. Can you tell me any more?
My ancestor was ‘in service’ in Yorkshire. Can you tell me any more?
Do you keep school records?
I want to trace my family tree. Where do I start?
There are loads of family history websites to help you out.
Try these for starters:
www.familyrecords.gov.uk/guides/beginners.htm
www.ffhs.org.uk/General/Help/First.htm#Questions
www.genuki.org.uk/gs/
Detailed information on the types of records used for family history can be found on our sources for family historians pages.
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Where can I get a copy of a birth/marriage/death certificate?
These exist from 1837 onwards. You will need to apply to the relevant area register office:
www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/RegOffice/
or to the General Register Office:
www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/research/obtainingcertificates/index.asp
Information on current fees for certificates can be found here:
www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/research/obtainingcertificates/certificatefees.asp
Yorkshire family history societies are collaborating with the local Register Offices to make the indexes to Yorkshire registration records freely available via the internet:
www.yorkshirebmd.org.uk/
Further online access to civil registration indexes is available at:
www.freebmd.org.uk/ and
www.1837online.com (a chargeable service).
Before 1837, the main sources of information about individuals are church registers of baptism, marriage and burial. These are organised by church. Many older church registers are deposited with West Yorkshire Archive Service and are available on microfiche at our offices in Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield and at the Yorkshire Archaeological Society in Leeds.
Many West Yorkshire church registers are included in the International Genealogical Index (I.G.I.) which can be searched online at www.familysearch.org
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Is there a family history society for the area I am researching?
The Yorkshire Archaeological Society has a Family History Section which covers the whole of Yorkshire:
www.yorkshireroots.org.uk
A list of district family history societies in Yorkshire can be found on the Federation of Family History Societies website:
www.ffhs.org.uk/General/Members/England.htm#YKS
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Where can I get a copy of a will?
From 1858 onwards, there has been a national probate system in operation. The national probate index can be consulted at our Wakefield office. The Wakefield office also holds volumes of registered wills from the West Riding Probate Registry from 1858 to about 1960. Copies of wills may be ordered from a local probate registry:
www.courtservice.gov.uk/cms/3734.htm
For further information on post-1858 probate for family history can be found at:
www.courtservice.gov.uk/cms/3800.htm
Before 1858, probate jurisdiction was the responsibility of the Church of England. Most Yorkshire wills prior to 1858 were proved in the courts of the Archbishop of York, and are now held at the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research. An index to the Borthwick wills 1688-1857 is held at our Wakefield office.
Our Leeds office holds pre-1858 probate records for various areas now mostly in North Yorkshire. For further information on the wills held at Leeds, download our Collections Guide 4 (PDF).
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Where can I get a copy of a census return and what will it tell me?
Have a look at this website:
www.familyrecords.gov.uk/topics/census.htm
West Yorkshire Archive Service does not hold copies of census returns (except for Calderdale, which has returns for the Calderdale area). The local studies libraries in Bradford, Halifax, and Huddersfield hold the returns for their districts, and often smaller local libraries and family history societies have copies for their areas. Leeds Central Library has copies for the whole of Yorkshire. Wakefield Library now has censuses for the whole of Yorkshire 1841-1901.
The 1881 and 1901 British censuses are now available online:
1881: www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?
PAGE=census/search_census.asp
1901: www.1901census.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
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How can I find out if someone else is researching the same surname?
Try out the following websites:
http://www.genuki.org.uk/indexes/SurnamesLists.html
http://www.one-name.org/register.shtml
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There wasn’t a church in the place where my family lived before the mid 19th century. Where would family members have been baptised/married/buried?
The area served by one church is known as a parish. When the parishes were created, the population in Yorkshire was vastly smaller than it is today. Therefore one parish church often served several villages or townships. This is different to the south of England, where each village usually had its own parish church.
People living in outlying villages usually had to travel to their parish church to be baptised, get married or for funerals. You can find out which is the relevant parish church by using the alphabetical index of Yorkshire places at:
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/Misc/Where/
Sometimes the townships in very large parishes, such as Halifax and Leeds, did have their own chapelry. These chapels could be given a licence to conduct baptisms, marriages or burials. But if the chapel did not have a licence, these ceremonies would take place at the parish church.
From 1832 onwards, the church authorities began to worry that there weren’t enough seats in the old parish churches to fit everybody in for services! So the large ancient parishes were subdivided and lots of new churches were built.
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What are Bishops Transcripts (BTs)?
From 1598, ministers had to send an annual return of their parish register entries to the church authorities. These returns are known as Bishops Transcripts. They can be very useful when the original registers are hard to read or if a register is missing.
For further information on Bishop's Transcripts held by West Yorkshire Archive Service see Collections Guide 3 (PDF)
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Where can I trace information about an adopted child?
Before 1927, there was no legal process of adoption in England and Wales. Earlier records of private fostering arrangements are very difficult to trace.
Information about records of adoptions which took place after 1927 can be found at:
http://www.familyrecords.gov.uk/topics/adoption.htm
Further help and advice for adoptees, birth relatives of adopted people, and adoptive families is available from the National Organisation for Counselling of Adoptees and their Parents (NORCAP):
http://www.norcap.org.uk
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My ancestor served in the police. Do you keep police service records?
Records of the West Yorkshire Police and its predecessors (West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police, West Yorkshire Constabulary, West Riding Constabulary and the borough forces of Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Dewsbury) are all held at our Wakefield Headquarters.
West Yorkshire Archive Service are required to abide by the Force Policy on Archives, which restricts access to personnel records under 100 years old. If your ancestor joined the police more than 50 years ago, an individual application should be made to our Wakefield Headquarters.
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My ancestor was in prison / in hospital at the time of the census. Can you tell me any more?
Prison Records
Wakefield Headquarters holds the archives of HMP Wakefield (the West Riding House of Correction), HMP Leeds (Armley Gaol) and HMP New Hall. The series of prisoner records are not complete in all cases, and all prisoner registers are closed to the public for 30 years. If you have a specific enquiry relating to prison records, please contact us for further advice. Even if we cannot find a record for your ancestor as a prisoner, we may be able to use court records to trace the trial.
Hospital Records
Our Wakefield office will also be your first point of call for most West Yorkshire hospital records. We hold considerable quantities of patient (and staff) records, although coverage across the county is not complete. All patient case files are closed to the public for 100 years, although special arrangements can usually be made for access to more recent records by family members. If you have a specific enquiry relating to hospital patient or staff records, please contact us for further advice.
Brief details about the location of hospital archive records can be found on the Hosprec database:
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/
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My ancestor was ‘in service’ in Yorkshire. Can you tell me any more?
Probably not. It is unusual for any records of servants, particularly female domestic servants, to have survived. Sometimes there are wages lists for male workers, especially outdoor labourers, such as gardeners or stablehands.
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Do you keep school records?
Yes we do. But unfortunately admission registers (lists of children at the school) have not survived for many schools. We are more likely to have sets of log books
– a kind of diary kept by the headteacher
– but these only rarely mention individual pupils.
If you have an enquiry about records for a specific school, please contact us for further advice.
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