Let’s start this issue with something really close to home. The Society has published transcriptions of Bristol Diocese parish registers from 1754 to 1837, and beyond that date in the case of marriages outside the city.

The big expansion in online family history resources in recent months has been the availability of more military records. Findmypast now has the British Army service records from 1760 to 1913, covering nearly 1.5 million men.

Although I usually prefer to work out how to do things rather than read the instructions, it is always interesting to receive helpful hints, and the following comes from the “Lost Cousins” newsletter.

This year is unlikely to see the release of any information as important to family historians as the 1911 census, but all of the online providers are promising new databases in an effort to retain your loyalty, and the January 2010 issue of “Who do you think you are?” contained an interesting summary.

I was recently looking for details of a marriage in Sleaford, Lincolnshire in 1862. I had the details of the couple from FreeBMD, but needed to know the name of the groom’s father, preferably without buying a copy of the marriage certificate.

Searching for births and marriages in England and Wales has just got a lot easier thanks to developments at Ancestry.

The 1991 census at www.1911census.co.uk seems to have settled down well and avoided the problem of the 1901 census release. All of England is now available, but we are still waiting for Wales, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, and some naval and military records.