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A Selection of Useful Links for Banburyshire

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Family & Historical Societies

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GenUKI

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Look-up Exchange

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Mailing Lists, Forums and Message Boards

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Maps, Gazetteers & Parish Locators

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National Sites

  • Ancestry Subscription based resource of worldwide census, marriage, newspaper and various other records. Includes some free searchable databases.
  • BBC Family History
  • British Genealogy is dedicated to assisting people with their British family history research. Not just to find ancestors and build a family tree, but to put meat on the bones with information about where they lived, how they lived their lives, information about their occupations, and what influenced their thinking and decision making. All free
  • BritishIslesGenWeb Project
  • British Origins Specialists in Welsh and English Genealogy - a pay site
  • Commonwealth War Graves Commission
  • Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
  • DocumentsOnline : allows you access to The National Archives' collection of digitised public records, including both academic and family history sources. Searching the index is free, but charges are made for downloading an image
  • Family History Online They publish on-line records compiled by Family History Societies, including parish registers, monumental inscriptions, censuses, poor law documents and others.
  • The Francis Frith Collection On this site you can browse 100,000+ photos from The Francis Frith Collection as well as historic maps and material from over 400 illustrated local books.
  • FreeBMD : FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free internet access to the transcribed records and original images.
    Note that this index is not complete
  • FreeCEN : This project aims to provide a "free-to-view" online searchable database of the 19th century UK census returns
  • FreeREG : The FreeREG Project's objective is to provide free Internet searches of baptism, marriage, and burial records, which have been transcribed from parish and non-conformist church registers in the UK.
    Please note that FreeREG is a work in progress - and volunteers are always welcome!
  • Historical Directories is a digital library of local and trade directories for England and Wales, from 1750 to 1919. It contains high quality reproductions of comparatively rare books, essential tools for research into local and genealogical history.
  • The Genealogist : Census transcriptions including 1841
  • GENfair Federation of Family History Societies e-commerce shop for Family History and Local History publications
  • Guild of One-Name Studies (GOONS) : A one-name study is a project researching all occurrences of a surname
  • London Gazette Archives has a wealth of information, about companies, military promotions, medal awards, wills, name changes etc. Put in the surname of a family into the search box & see what emerges. (Go to "Historians")
  • mycensuses.com 1851 and 1891 census images
  • Office of National Statistics (ONS)
  • RootsWeb Home Page : The internet's oldest and largest Free genealogical community
  • Stepping Stones 1841 to 1871 Census of England and Wales, with Street Indexes to accompany the major towns and cities, and a large variety of old Trade Directories and similar publications on CD-ROM.
  • S&N Genealogy Supplies Software, UK Census and Data CDs
  • UK BMD : This site provides links to web sites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses.
  • ViewFinder English Heritage's online image resource for England's history.
  • The Workhouse : The Workhouse often evokes the grim world of Oliver Twist, but its story is also a fascinating mixture of social history, politics, economics and architecture.
    This site is dedicated to the workhouse - its buildings, inmates, staff and administrators, even its poets.....
  • 1837 On-Line : GRO Civil Registration indexes from 1837 to 2004, 1861 & 1891 Census (with an address search), War Deaths WW1, WW2, Boer War and Overseas BMDs

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LDS Church - Family History in UK

  • To order software products in the UK contact The Distribution Centre, 399 Garretts Green Lane, Birmingham, B33 0UH
    Tel. 0121-7841460. Debit/credit card telephone number for CDs: 08700-102051
  • Family Search (LDS) : Church of the Latter-day Saints
    The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world, including the International Genealogical Index ( IGI), Ancestral File, the 1881 census, their Library Catalogue, details of Family Research Centres etc....
  • Hugh Wallis's Genealogical Web Sites: Hugh Wallis's site provides facilities for searching the IGI by parish, surname, and middle names

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Record Offices, Archives, Libraries and Museums

  • Local
  • Banbury Library & Centre for Banburyshire Studies (COBS)
    Marlborough Road
    Banbury
    Oxfordshire OX16 5DB
    Telephone: 01295 262282 No website
  • Banbury Museum, Horsefair, Banbury
    Open: April to September.
    Telephone: 01295 259855
    The museum tells the story of "Banburyshire" and is housed in the old boardroom of the Poor Law Guardians. The museum holds a large collection of photographs and glass plate negatives of the region. (No website?)
  • Granary Museum of Bygones
    Butlin Farm, Claydon, Banbury, Oxfordshire.
    Telephone: 0129 589 258
    Housed in a former granary and cowshed, the displays show 19th and early 20th Century material from the homes, farms, offices and craftsmen's workshops of North Oxfordshire.
  • Swalcliffe Barn
    Known locally as the Tythe Barn, Swalcliffe Barn was built between 1400 and 1409, and it is one of the dozen best barns in the country, with much of its mediaeval timber half-cruck roof intact.
  • Edge Hill Battle Museum
    Farnborough Hall, Farnborough, Banbury
    Telephone: 0129595 89593
    On 23 October 1642, the Parliamentary Army, clashed at Edge Hill with the Royalist Army commanded by King Charles 1. Thirty thousand Englishmen fought this, the first major battle of the English Civil War.
  • Cogges Manor Farm Museum
    Church Lane, Cogges, Witney
    Telephone: 01993 772602
    A farm and Manor House as they would have looked in late Victorian times, with old-fashioned breeds of animals, period room displays and demonstrations of cooking, hand milking, butter-making, seasonal farm work, lacemaking, spinning, traditional crafts etc
  • Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies (Buckinghamshire Record Office and Local Studies service) are the major repositories for source material of interest to family historians in Buckinghamshire.
  • Northamptonshire Central Library
  • Northamptonshire Record Office
  • Oxfordshire Record Office (ORO)
  • Centre for Oxfordshire Studies (COS)
  • Warwickshire County Library
  • Warwickshire County Record Office
  • National
  • The British Library : The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. The British Library Integrated Catalogue lists over twelve million items in the British Library's collections. You can use it to find information on books and other documents they hold and order material you need to see.
  • Family Records Centre (FRC)
  • General Register Office (GRO)
    GRO Certificate Ordering Service - where you order on-line Birth, Marriage and Death certificates for England and Wales
  • The National Archives : Records of the British Government from Domesday to the present
    Domesday Book
  • Access to Archives (A2A) : The A2A database contains catalogues describing archives held throughout England and dating from the 900s to the present day
  • Imperial War Museum : a "valuable resource for all - commercial users, academics, researchers, and people interested in learning more about their family history."
  • Familia - Family History Resources in Public Libraries in the UK and Ireland.
  • Guildhall Library Manuscripts Section
  • National Newspaper Library (Colindale). To find details of newspapers held by the Library go to their search page

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Surnames Lists

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Abbreviations Terms & Definitions

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Villages

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Northamptonshire

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Oxfordshire

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Warwickshire

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Personal Family History Web Sites

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History Websites

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Miscellaneous

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