Online and CD ROM sources
To use any of these resources, you will need to book a computer. Computers can be booked for a two hour session. You can book by telephoning 01743 255350 or by email (archives@shropshire.gov.uk).
Please note that anyone under the age of 16 using the computers at Shropshire Archives will need a Student Ticket. This requires a signature of parent/carer/guardian to indicate consent for internet use.
If you would like to use a computer for longer than two hours, then we recommend you use the Reference Library.
Ancestry Library Edition
Shropshire Archives has recently subscribed to Ancestry Library Edition. This website gives access to a wide range of genealogical sources and can be used at Shropshire Archives free of charge. The site contains UK census returns for 1841 - 1901, including the returns for Scotland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. It also gives access to the birth, marriage and death records from the UK, Ireland and the US. Do you have American roots? Ancestry has US federal census returns for 1790 - 1930, immigration passenger lists and civil war service records. This is just a very small selection of the databases available on Ancestry which is always growing - why not call in and have a look? Contact Shropshire Archives to book a computer.
All Shropshire Libraries now subscribe to the Ancestry Library Edition.
CD ROMs
Shropshire Archives has several CD ROM programs providing access to local and national sources of interest to family and local historians. The programs are available to use at Shropshire Archives. They run from a server which means that they run more rapidly, several people can use the program simultaneously and you don’t have to handle any disk. You are most welcome to have a go when you are in Shropshire Archives - who knows, you might find that elusive relative in a quite unlikely place. We make no charge other than for printouts.
At present we have the following available, but we are on the lookout for more genealogical CD-ROM sources, so if you can recommend any please let us know.
Family Search
The CD-ROM version contains two elements -Ancestral File which contains pedigrees and the International Genealogical Index (IGI). The IGI can be searched for birth/baptism, Marriages and “Parent Search” which produces a list of baptisms of children whose parents share the same names. The IGI is in two sequences of data - the Main File and the Addenda - but it is very easy to switch from one to the other, but you have to remember to do so for each search. For each search you can refine your terms - date range, exact spelling of names and, particularly useful, which counties. Though it is rather old-fashioned in appearance, being a DOS based program, the instructions for moving around the data are always available on screen, and being mouse-less even the newest computer user soon gets the hang of it!
1881 Census
Some of you will have seen this amazing tool. With Version 3.02 of Resource File Viewer, it is possible to search for any terms or combinations of terms (eg addresses or occupations) in the census data for the whole country.
National Burial Index
Nearly five and half million names can be searched. The period covered is mainly 1813-1837 but there are many entries both before and after these dates. Some counties are unrepresented at present.
Shropshire Family History Society Burials Index
We are delighted with this invaluable index and most grateful for permission to network it for users. It contains burials 1813-1837 but with a wider date span for some parishes. It even has an ingenious button which shows you the location of a particular parish.
Soldiers who Died in the Great War
This is a CD copy of the 81 volumes published after the war listing 635,000 soldiers and 37,000 officers who died during the war. The information given varies from entry to entry, but you may find details of enlistment as well as regiment, service number, date of death and where this occurred. Very easy to use.
Army Roll of Honour - World War II
This contains the complete Army Roll of Honour preserved in the Public Record Office (WO 304). Searches can be executed for Regiment or branch of Army at 1st September 1939, Regiment or branch of Army at death, surnames, Christian names, initials, born (county), place of domicile (county), army number, rank, theatre or country where fatal wound was sustained or death occurred, decorations, and by date. Very easy to use.
Shropshire Quarter Sessions 1831-1920
The work of many years, the index to the thousands of papers filed in the Shropshire Quarter Sessions Rolls was created by volunteers from the Shropshire Family History Society. Using the index you can rapidly find references to any personal name or place covered by the documents. You might find your ancestor committed a crime or was a witness or victim. The index also includes many inquisitions post mortem. The documents themselves are archives and can be produced in the Search Room for holders of Readers' Tickets.
Ayshford Trafalgar Roll
The roll contains names and details of over 21,000 men who were on the musters of the British ships on 21st October 1805 (although still on the musters, some men had been discharged before the Battle). Details recorded about each man include the ship on which he served, his rank or rating and in most cases his age and place of birth. Where the documents survive other details may include families, former trades, pensions, awards, medals, physical descriptions, pictures, injuries sustained, illnesses and date of death. The CD Rom has been put together by Pam and Derek Ayshford from sources at the National Archives, the Royal Naval Museum, the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Marines Museum.
GenFind
This is contained on 4 CDs. It contains a wide range of source material mainly from the 19th century covering parishes which now comprise Telford in East Shropshire. Census, parish, tithe and other records have been scoured for personal names. It can be useful for anyone searching this part of the county especially as the area and its former divisions are confusing to someone coming on it for the first time. The Wellington section is particularly useful as it contains most of the All Saints parish registers 1750-1848 and the censuses 1821, 1841-1861.
Gloucester Port Books
The port books record in great detail coastal and river trade in the 16th to 18th centuries. As the Severn was used extensively by traders to move goods and even passengers up and down the river through Shropshire, you can find out who owned the boats (called trows) who their masters were, where they were going and what they carried - very often this information is given in such details that there is an on-line glossary to explain unfamiliar quantities and what the technical terms for these goods mean.
