Here’s a roundup of European genealogy records recently published online:
- Danish military conscription rolls and the 1845 census;
- English military, parish and burial records;
- Irish police register and digital news archives;
- records for Portugal,
- Slovenia and Spain;
- more Swedish church and household examination registers;
- and a short documentary about digitizing the Nuremberg Trials.
Ready to explore more of your European genealogy? Millions of records have been published online recently! Scroll down to learn about free or subscription-access records for ancestors from:
- the British Isles
- Denmark
- Ireland
- Slovenia
- Spain
- and Sweden.
British Isles
Genealogy giant subscription website Findmypast recently announced several new additions for those researching their British family history. Here are the collections along with notes supplied by Findmypast:
British Armed Forces records:
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Births and Baptisms. Over 92,000 records added. “This collection brings together records held by the General Register Office and The National Archives in one search and consists of birth records of children born to those working within the armed forces, merchant navy, and consular forces, as well as civilian ship passengers.”
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Banns and Marriages. “Search through over 35,000 new additions and discover marriages pertaining to military personnel, British Consul staff, and other British nationals working overseas. Records will reveal a combination of your ancestor’s birth year, banns year, marriage year, marriage place, occupation, organization, marital status, father’s name, father’s occupation, the names of witnesses and spouse’s details.”
- British Armed Forces and Overseas Deaths and Burials. “Search over 193,000 records to uncover the details of members of the British armed forces who died while serving their country overseas, British civilians who died while traveling or working overseas, and individuals, including seamen, who died at sea.”
Hertfordshire parish records. Over 87,000 records have been added to their collection of Search Hertfordshire Baptisms. (Transcripts list year and location of baptism, names of parents and father’s occupation. Images may include additional notes.) Nearly 62,000 records have been added to Hertfordshire Marriages. (Transcripts list the name of bride and groom, date of first banns reading, date of marriage, ages, and names of fathers. Images can include considerably more detail.) Over 66,000 records have been added to Hertfordshire Burials. Dating as far back as the 1400s, these records include burial date, age at death and burial place, and potentially more.
Burial inscriptions. The site has added thousands of burial inscriptions to multiple collections. These include 8,000 new records in Yorkshire Monumental Inscriptions (covering cemeteries in Rawmarsh, Thorpe Hesley, and Treeton); over 30,000 records covering 26 burial sites in Northumberland & Durham Monumental Inscriptions.
Denmark
Free genealogy giant FamilySearch.org has added over 71,000 records to their online collection, Denmark, Military Conscription Rolls, 1789-1792. According to the collection description, “The records usually include name, number, birth place, age, residence, height and other remarks.” The total records indexed are just under 150,000; images are included.
Subscription genealogy giant MyHeritage.com has published the 1845 Denmark Census, which also covered the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. “Information recorded in the census includes: name, residence, age, marital status, birthplace, position in family, occupation, and religious affiliation,” states the collection description, which also has additional helpful notes. To read it, click the down arrow next to the collection header when you’ve gotten to the collection page, as shown here. For example, you’ll find a description of how the census is organized in market towns and rural areas, and you’ll find a reminder about changing boundaries in Denmark since 1845.
Ireland
Nearly a century’s worth of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) General Register has been published online as a free, browse-only record collection at University College Dublin’s Digital Library. “The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) General Register covers recruitment and transfers within the Dublin Metropolitan Police,” states the collection description. “The first 252 pages of this volume are available through the UCD Digital Library. There are 12,567 entries on these pages, covering the period 1837-1925.”
Irish Times has reported on the digitization of two Irish news sources covering recent years:
- An archive of 1500 hours of TG4 news bulletin broadcasts by TG4, an Irish-language program, of stories spanning 1996-2004. (Click here to read more on Irish Times.)
- A new collection covering the Troubles and the 1990s peace process. The archive “features a wide range of material relating to the 1990s when Northern Ireland made the transformation from conflict, to a peace process, to the Belfast Agreement of April 1998.” Click here to read more on Irish Times.)
Portugal
Those researching Portuguese ancestors should know that FamilySearch continues to add to its collections of free genealogy records for Portugal. Updated collections in January 2018 are:
- The relatively small database, Portugal, Coimbra, Civil Registration, 1893-1980, has added more than 1,000 new records to a database of nearly 10,000 names.
- Nearly 2,000 names have been added to Portugal, Portalegre, Catholic Church Records, 1859-1911 for a total of nearly 67,000 indexed names.
- Portugal, Setúbal, Catholic Church Records, 1555-1911 has also been updated, bringing its total indexed records to over 37,000.
Slovenia
FamilySearch has nearly doubled the numbers of indexed names its free database, Slovenia, Ljubljana, Funeral Accounts, 1937-1970. The collection describes these records as follows: “Sheet recording the date and place of birth, death, and burial, as well as the cost of the burial for those dieing in Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia. The birth date and place are also reported. Includes an index which covers years 1915-1936 for which certificates were not acquired.”
Spain
Online Journalism Blog reports on the publishing of the first central database of victims of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime. The database has been created by the Innovation and Human Rights (IHR) association to document the “125,000 people [who] died, disappeared or were repressed in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and during the Franco dictatorship, according to historians. Many of their families still do not know, 40 years later, what exactly happened to them.”
FamilySearch.org has added nearly 140,000 indexed names to its free online collection, Spain, Diocese of Cartagena, Catholic Church Records, 1503-1969. According to the collection description, “These records include: baptisms, confirmations, pre-marriage investigations, marriages, deaths, indexes, testaments, and parish financial and land records. Some of these records have been indexed and are searchable as part of this collection. Additional indexed records will be published as they become available.”
Sweden
MyHeritage.com announced the addition of three decades of records to its important collection, Sweden Household Examination Books, 1860-1930. This “primary source for researching the lives of individuals and families throughout the parishes of Sweden” now extends back two more decades (1860-1880) and forward an additional decade (1920-1930) not previously covered on the site. MyHeritage claims these records are uniquely available online at its site.
FamilySearch has added more than 35,000 indexed names to its collection, Sweden, Örebro Church Records, 1613-1918; index 1635-1860. Note that actual record images are available earlier and later than the timeframe of records currently indexed. As always, FamilySearch volunteers continue to index additional records and the site posts these updates as frequently as possible.
The Nuremberg Trials
Harvard Law Today recently reported on its progress digitizing some of the 20th-century’s most valuable legal history documents: a million pages relating to the Nuremberg Trials, held just after World War II to prosecute the Nazi regime. They have released this short video about the ongoing project.
More help for European genealogy
We make it easier to start researching your ancestors in a new country! Our free series of beginning genealogy articles introduce you to the key records and research strategies for your ancestors’ homelands, including these European nations:
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About the Author: Sunny Morton
Sunny is a Contributing Editor at Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems; her voice is often heard on the Genealogy Gems Podcast and Premium Podcasts. She’s known for her expertise on the world’s biggest family history websites (she’s the author of Genealogy Giants: Comparing the 4 Major Websites); writing personal and family histories (she also wrote Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy); and sharing her favorite reads for the Genealogy Gems Book Club.
Germany wasn’t mentioned, nothing new on East Prussia, as some my relatives are from the Altenwilde area?
I like that about Sweden will it be in English to read?
I would like to know also if my family is telated to Leneard Bergelin the famous tennis player/coach Bjorn Borg if thats right how you spell the tennis player’s name. I know Mr. Bergelin died a few years back.