Our Magazine
Continuously published since the Society was formed in 1975.
Published and distributed to all members in March, June, September and December, our Magazine is available in both paper and digital formats. It has twice won the Family History Federation's award for Best Overall Journal of the Year. A complete set is available for reference in our Research Room .
Each issue aims to keep members up-to-date with Society business, news and forthcoming events including local talks and fairs. There are regular features such as reports from meetings, progress on projects, members’ research enquiries, details of new publications and a selection of articles about family or local history topics submitted by members.
Your articles, letters and reports should be submitted to the Editor at: editor@bafhs.org.uk.
We start this issue with some news from FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org). New data in considerable amounts is being added every week, but only some of this relates to the U.K. and only a fraction of that is relevant to our area. However, it is an interesting indication of the way that the website is going
These articles usually concentrate on the latest developments at the major subscription sources, accompanied by details of smaller, free websites. This month, I am going to start with a new site which is quite expensive to use, but which can be invaluable if your research takes you in particular directions. It is the new archive of British newspapers at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.
For some time, the only way to see General Register Office records of births, marriages and deaths online was through FreeBMD (http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/). This volunteer project is transcribing the GRO indexes, starting at 1837. Now that Ancestry, Findmypast and other online sources have got indexes to the same records, it is time to take another look at FreeBMD and see what progress has been made, and whether it is still useful.
In my article in the June Journal, I wrote about problems with the new FamilySearch database, where some Bristol events had been attributed to Abbots Leigh parish when they had in fact taken place elsewhere. This error now appears to have been corrected, and certainly some events that I checked are now shown as being at the right parish.
The big news for local researchers is the addition of over half a million Bristol parish records to FamilySearch. These cover Church of England parishes from 1837 onwards, and you may find BMD entries as late as the 1930s.
It is two years since the 1911 census first became available, and until now it has only been available on the Findmypast website, and its associate 1911census.co.uk.
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.