Findmypast added more than 400,000 records, a busy week, across four collections and over half a million newspaper pages to its archive.
Northamptonshire Records
Three new collections shine a light on everyday lives — and sometimes difficult ones — in the county across several centuries.
Northampton Infirmary Child Patients, 1744–1801 contains 4,210 records documenting children who received care at Northampton’s infirmary during the 18th century.
Northamptonshire Burials adds 63,258 records spanning 1543 to 1858 — a substantial sweep of parish burial registers stretching from the mid-Tudor period through to the Victorian era.
Northamptonshire Baptisms rounds out the county offerings with 41,688 records covering the 16th to 19th centuries, offering another avenue for tracing families through the generations.
England & Wales, Divorce Court Index, 1858–1937
Findmypast has significantly expanded its divorce records collection, with 296,824 additions to the England & Wales Divorce Court Index, now covering 1858 to 1937. Since the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 first made civil divorce accessible to ordinary people, these records can reveal a great deal about family circumstances that might otherwise go undocumented.
Newspapers
This week’s newspaper update adds 526,032 pages across seven new titles and updates to 28 existing ones.
New titles range from the Sheffield Free Press (1851–1857) and Common Good (1880–1881) in the 19th century, through to Fairplay (1883–1914), the Welsh Llangollen Advertiser (1869–1896), the Scottish Gourock Times (1915–1966), Rugby Observer (1911–1939), and Sound Wave (1907–1933).
Among the updated titles, several offer substantial multi-decade runs reaching back into the Victorian era: the Ripley Advertiser now spans 1864–1917, the Roscommon Journal, and Western Impartial Reporter runs from 1865 to 1927, and the Dundalk Examiner and Louth Advertiser covers 1881–1929. The Commercial Daily List (London) reaches back to 1839, the Daily Telegraph & Courier to 1855, and the Kelso Chronicle and Southwark and Bermondsey Recorder add 19th-century coverage too. Maritime researchers should note new additions to Lloyd’s List and the Liverpool Shipping Telegraph. Scottish researchers are well served with updates to the Fife Herald, Highland News, Inverness Courier, John o’ Groat Journal, and Northern Scot and Moray & Nairn Express.
BIFHSGO welcomes you on Saturday morning.