Useful local and family history sites

This page gives links to useful personal history websites.

It is not intended to be comprehensive: we have picked out what we believe to be the best personal history sites and listed them here. Several of the sites listed here have very comprehensive lists of links to personal history websites, so it is not necessary to repeat them here.

An excellent source for both family and local historians is The People's Network Enquire service, which connects you to public library staff in England, who will help answer questions for you.

Family history sites

• Familia is an excellent source of information for family history in the UK and Irish Republic. The site has information about locating family history sources at a local level from public libraries, and has details of information available at national level.
• Genealogy in Hertfordshire provides an excellent introduction to conducting family history research and local history in the records relating to Hertfordshire.
• Berkshire Family History Society's website advertises comprehensively the wide range of support services and resources available to its members & other researchers.
• Genukiis the oldest and largest genealogical directory for the UK and Irish Republic. Its 60,000 pages are organised geographically, with a section for each county.
• Ancestryis an American service that includes every English and Welsh census document from 1851 to 1901.

Local history sites

• The Victoria County History (VCH) was created to produce an encyclopaedic national history in a series of volumes which cover, county by county, and parish by parish, the general and detailed history of England from earliest times to the present .
• The Hidden Histories web site is published by Eastside Community Heritage, an organisation concerned with documenting the history of 'ordinary' people and life in East London.
• Beginnings: the History of Higher Education in Bloomsbury and Westminster offers local historians insight into the origins and evolution of many of central London's famous educational institutions.