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British Origins
WAGS has recently taken out a subscription to the website BRITISH ORIGINS which allows five simultaneous viewings at the WAGS Library. The volunteers on duty at the Library will help you access the site.
How does British Origins differ from Ancestry, Findmypast and Scotland's People, the other websites provided through WAGS?
The site is divided into three sections, British Origins, Scottish Origins and Irish Origins and each section contains important and in some cases, unique searchable records.
Briefly, British Origins provides
• access to over 70 million names covering 1209-1948
• the British Origins Image Library, a collection of wonderful photographs, maps and historical publications that show a rare glimpse of daily life in Britain prior to the 20th Century.
• The ability to search by Place to get authentic map images and place name history from the England and Wales Gazetteer
but most importantly,
• the new National Wills Index, which is fast becoming the primary online resource for pre-1858 English probate material.
The National Wills Index (www.nationalwillsindex.com) is a collaborative project to create a single, dedicated, online resource for pre-1857 probate material for England & Wales. The National Wills Index (NWI) is a project initiated by Origins.net, who are developing and hosting the online service. Most indexes will be linked either to digitised images of source documents or to a hard copy service.
While there are numerous indexes to probate material available in printed form and online, for most researchers the lack of any central source of such indexes is a major hindrance. In many cases, the researcher may simply not know where to look. The NWI is intended to remove this difficulty, and provide a major new resource for the family historian, and for the owners of the original material.
National Burial Index for England and Wales
The latest edition of the National Burial Index for England and Wales is now available to WAGS members. This database, covering entries recorded in English and Welsh burial registers from 1538-2008, is incomplete. However it contains over 18.4 million records, many of which will not be found on any website.
Again, speak to our helpful volunteers in the Library for assistance using this updated resource
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