Blog

Over 23,000 new Montgomeryshire parish records just published

We have just published 23,984 new parish records for Montgomeryshire on findmypast.co.uk

These records were provided by the Montgomeryshire Genealogical Society.

The Montgomeryshire Genealogical Society works in association with the Federation of Family History Societies.

The table below provides more information about these records:

Find your Montgomeryshire ancestors today in these brand new records.

Behind the scenes: software developer Scot McSweeny-Roberts gets technical

I’m Scot McSweeny-Roberts and I’m one of the software developers here at findmypast.co.uk. I thought I would let you know about one of the projects that all of us in the development team have been busy with over the last few months, namely our infrastructure upgrade.

One of the more challenging parts of software development is keeping up with the latest versions of the tools and technologies that we use to build and run our site with and it can be quite easy to get left behind with an environment that is unsupported or difficult to maintain. Besides general issues of support and maintenance, new versions also bring new features that we want to use to make the site even better, which is why over the last few months we’ve been migrating our code over to use the latest and greatest versions of our tools(*).

Scot McSweeny-Roberts

Upgrading software can sometimes be difficult as what used to work in a previous version might work differently or not at all in the latest version. Those differences can be subtle and lead to several days of work figuring out why something that used to work perfectly fine no longer does and then getting it to work correctly again. This can involve spending hours looking at source code you would never normally look at – personally, I now know more about a type of software known as a ‘Transaction Manager’ than I ever really wanted to know.

Once we had working versions of the site running our local machines, it was time to run a copy of the site on a test server. The test server is meant to be as similar as possible to a production server and occasionally surprises pop up due to differences between our local machines and the test server.

Once everything is running as expected on the test server it’s time to move it over to the production servers, which means an early morning for some of our team members as they make sure that everything still runs smoothly after switching over.

All the work involved is worth it though as newer tools are generally better tools. We’ll now be able to develop new features for the site in far less time and we’ll have more flexibility when it comes to scalability.

(*) While we were in the process upgrading, a very important bit of software known as the application server had an entirely new release. Sometimes new can be too new, so in this case we’ve stuck with the slightly older but potentially more stable version.

Over 7,000 extra Chelsea Pensioner records 1801-1912 published

We have just added 7,247 extra Chelsea Pensioner British Army Service Records and 44,130 extra images to our WO97 collection.

The National Archives describes this set of records (WO97 boxes 6323-6383) as ‘supplementary series formed from documents which were found to have been misfiled when the post-1913 records were sorted’.

There are now 1,041,092 records in the entire WO97 Chelsea Pensioners collection on findmypast.co.uk

This new release means that if you haven’t been able to find your ancestors in our Chelsea Pensioner records, it’s definitely worth searching again now. These new records provide an alphabetical list of soldiers by last name which spans over 100 years.

Search the Chelsea Pensioner records now to find your missing ancestors.

Introducing the Foundation subscription package

To make sure we’re giving you the best possible service, we’ve developed a new subscription package which will provide the perfect basis for your research: the Foundation package.

The Foundation package will replace our Explorer subscription for new subscribers.

What does the Foundation package include?

The Foundation package will give you access to the fundamental records you need to take your family tree back to Victorian times and beyond:

• The only complete England and Wales census collection 1841-1911. Find your ancestors in the 1911 census and try our address search across all the censuses, exclusive to findmypast.co.uk
• The only complete online set of birth, marriage and death records 1837-2006 – including our fully indexed birth records. We’ll launch our fully indexed marriage records by the end of the year and the deaths will follow soon after in early 2011
• Our overseas BMD records 1761-2005 – you’ll need these records to find your ancestors who lived abroad
• BMDs at sea 1854-1890 – search these records for your ancestors’ births, marriages and deaths at sea

Find out more about all our subscription packages here.

What if I have an Explorer subscription?

Any of you out there with a current Explorer subscription will still be able to renew this subscription from 90 days before it expires. We’ll still add any new records we publish to your Explorer subscription.

Findmypast.co.uk subscription options

Over 3,000 new Warwickshire parish marriage records now on findmypast.co.uk

We have just published 3,141 new Warwickshire parish marriage records for 6,282 individuals on findmypast.co.uk

These records cover the period 1539-2009 and they were provided by Pam Batstone and Mary Williams.

These new parish records are the latest in the series of parish records we’ve recently added to our collection.

Search for your Warwickshire ancestors in our parish records collection today.

Over 3,000 new Warwickshire parish marriage records now on findmypast.co.uk

We have just published 3,141 new Warwickshire parish marriage records for 6,282 individuals on findmypast.co.uk

These records cover the period 1539-2009 and they were provided by Pam Batstone and Mary Williams.

These new parish records are the latest in the series of parish records we’ve recently added to our collection.

Search for your Warwickshire ancestors in our parish records collection today.

Five new military collections just launched: over 480,000 new records

We have just published five fantastic new military record collections on findmypast.co.uk which comprise 482,879 records.

See below for details of each set of records and for more information about each of the collections:

WWII Prisoners of War – 104,838

Distinguished Conduct Medal Citations – 24,928

Ireland’s Memorial Records of the Great War – 49,602

Register of the Second Anglo-Boer War – 259,581

WWI Naval Casualties – 43,930

More information about the records

WWII Prisoners of War

The register of over 107,000 British Army prisoners of war held in Germany and German occupied territories. On findmypast.co.uk you can search for each individual soldier’s number.

Distinguished Conduct Medal Citations

This award was instituted in 1854 during the Crimean War to recognise gallantry for Other Ranks (i.e., non-officer rank). Second only to the Victoria Cross in terms of prestige, this award was prized as much by the soldiers of the time as it is by medal collectors today. Bars were awarded in recognition of further acts of gallantry meriting the same award.

This set of records lists the full citations of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (and second and third award bars) in the Great War, and when you search, you’ll discover fascinating and rich detail about each soldier.

Ireland’s Memorial Records of the Great War

Eight volumes of details of over 49,000 fatal casualties. The men and women commemorated either served in Irish Regiments or were born or resident in Ireland at the time of their death and were serving with units from Britain and its empire. On findmypast.co.uk, you can search by each soldier’s number.

A remarkable feature of the volumes is the beautiful symbolic borders designed by the artist Harry Clarke, best known for his work in stained glass.

Register of the Second Anglo-Boer War

A unique database for genealogists, military historians and medal collectors: a quarter of a million records of men and women who served in the British Imperial Forces during the war in southern Africa: soldiers, sailors, nurses and civilians. You can search over 258,800 names, including a completely revised casualty list of 59,000 casualty records.

WWI Naval Casualties

These records contain details of naval other ranks deaths in service during the First World War. The original records are held by The National Archives and are in a perilously damaged state.

When you search these records you’ll find the soldier’s full names, rating, number, branch of service, name of ship or unit, decorations etc., as well as other valuable information. The date and cause of death, location of their cemetery and reference of grave (where applicable) is shown together with the name and address of the relative notified of the death.

Find your ancestors in our extensive military collection 1656-1994.

Five new military collections just launched: over 480,000 new records

We have just published five fantastic new military record collections on findmypast.co.uk which comprise 482,879 records.

See below for details of each set of records and for more information about each of the collections:

WWII Prisoners of War – 104,838

Distinguished Conduct Medal Citations – 24,928

Ireland’s Memorial Records of the Great War – 49,602

Register of the Second Anglo-Boer War – 259,581

WWI Naval Casualties – 43,930

More information about the records

WWII Prisoners of War

The register of over 107,000 British Army prisoners of war held in Germany and German occupied territories. On findmypast.co.uk you can search for each individual soldier’s number.

Distinguished Conduct Medal Citations

This award was instituted in 1854 during the Crimean War to recognise gallantry for Other Ranks (i.e., non-officer rank). Second only to the Victoria Cross in terms of prestige, this award was prized as much by the soldiers of the time as it is by medal collectors today. Bars were awarded in recognition of further acts of gallantry meriting the same award.

This set of records lists the full citations of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (and second and third award bars) in the Great War, and when you search, you’ll discover fascinating and rich detail about each soldier.

Ireland’s Memorial Records of the Great War

Eight volumes of details of over 49,000 fatal casualties. The men and women commemorated either served in Irish Regiments or were born or resident in Ireland at the time of their death and were serving with units from Britain and its empire. On findmypast.co.uk, you can search by each soldier’s number.

A remarkable feature of the volumes is the beautiful symbolic borders designed by the artist Harry Clarke, best known for his work in stained glass.

Register of the Second Anglo-Boer War

A unique database for genealogists, military historians and medal collectors: a quarter of a million records of men and women who served in the British Imperial Forces during the war in southern Africa: soldiers, sailors, nurses and civilians. You can search over 258,800 names, including a completely revised casualty list of 59,000 casualty records.

WWI Naval Casualties

These records contain details of naval other ranks deaths in service during the First World War. The original records are held by The National Archives and are in a perilously damaged state.

When you search these records you’ll find the soldier’s full names, rating, number, branch of service, name of ship or unit, decorations etc., as well as other valuable information. The date and cause of death, location of their cemetery and reference of grave (where applicable) is shown together with the name and address of the relative notified of the death.

Find your ancestors in our extensive military collection 1656-1994.