Much of the information and images on this website comes from elsewhere on the internet. Here’s a list of many of the websites I’ve found useful during my research.
Paul
A list of all those individuals who have contributed data and images to The Willis Tree can be found here.
AUSTRALIA
NATIONAL ARCHIVES of AUSTRALIA – The National Archives of Australia was established under the Archives Act 1983 as an executive agency of the Australian Government. ‘The National Archives of Australia can best be described as the memory of our nation collecting and preserving Australian Government records that reflect our history and identity.’
TROVE – from National Library of Australia. Find and get over 454 million Australian and online resources:
books, images, historic newspapers, maps, music, archives and more.
NEW ZEALAND
DIGITAL NZ – Search across more than 29 million digital items to discover New Zealand treasures such as amazing aerial photos, posters and memorabilia, newspaper clippings, artworks, and publications. Items are contributed from partners including Te Papa, the Alexander Turnbull Library, Auckland Art Gallery, Te Ara, NZ On Screen and many more.
HUTT CITY LIBRARIES – the Hutt City Libraries Online Heritage Collection provides a full-text archive of a number of important New Zealand texts, of interest both to the researcher and the casual browser.
MUSEUM of NEW ZEALAND – Te Papa is New Zealand’s national museum, renowned for being bicultural, scholarly, innovative, and fun.
NATIONAL LIBRARY of NEW ZEALAND this site lets you search the full collections of the National Library of New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library.
NEW ZEALAND HISTORY – explore the history of New Zealand’s culture and society, politics and government, and the impact of war
PAPERS PAST – Papers Past contains more than three million pages of digitised New Zealand newspapers and periodicals. The collection covers the years 1839 to 1948 and includes 120 publications from all regions of New Zealand.
RECOLLECT – Recollect is a hosted digital collection system designed to allow access to your digital collections and interact with your community.
TE ARA – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand is a ‘comprehensive guide to our peoples, natural environment, history, culture, economy and society’.
TASMANIA
FOUNDERS & SURVIVORS – Founders & Survivors is a partnership between historians, genealogists, demographers and population health researchers. It seeks to record and study the founding population of 73,000 men women and children who were transported to Tasmania. Many survived their convict experience and went on to help build a new society.
LINC TASMANIA – We connect Tasmanians to learning and information, their history and their communities. We also connect people from around the world to Tasmanian resources.
DEVON
GenUKI – Devon: Blackawton
Our4Bears – South Hams, Devon – A Genealogical Information Resource
Stone & Quarrymen of the West Country – A Genealogical Index of Masons, Quarrymen, Builders, Carpenters and all related Occupations in Devon and Cornwall
DOVER
Dover History Archive – a searchable collection of notes, images, articles and books documenting the town’s history.
Kent Photo Archive – part of an extensive photo-archive currently contains 25337 historic images of Kent with many dating back to the late 1800’s.
Museum of Dover – Dover Museum is much more than just a local history and archaeology museum. Situated in the town centre of Dover, Britain’s historic port town, this modern museum tells the fascinating story of this rich and important area.
Old Dover in Words & Pictures – These pages contain pictures and descriptions of the older parts of Dover as they exist today, including some archive photos, maps and background information on the area and how it relates to our family histories and some brief biographies of local characters.
Pictures of Old Dover – I came across this page of links whilst doing a search for images of old Dover.
Postcards of Dover – a collection of postcards of Dover, all at least 50 years old.
Pubs of Dover – a comprehensive database of pubs in Dover, both now and in the past, with photos, histories and recollections.
St Margaret’s Village Archive – St Margaret’s is a beautiful coastal village, a few miles from Dover, with a rich and colourful history. The village archive is owned and cared for by the St Margaret’s History Society.
The Dover Society – The Objectives of the Dover Society are (1) to promote high standards of planning and architecture; (2) to interest and inform the public in geography, history, archaeology, natural history and architecture of the area; (3) to secure the preservation, protection, development and improvement of features of historic or public interest; and (4) commitment to the belief that a good environment is a good investment.
REFERENCE
Ancient Faces – AncientFaces ‘creates a visual picture of our shared past through the collaborative effort of our online community. Join the community (it’s completely free) to discover vintage photos of the faces and places in your family history.’
Ancestry Images – Free image archive for antiqueprints.com
Ancestral Atlas – this unique map-based genealogy site enables you to add and share your family history events worldwide.
British History Online – a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800.
British Newspaper Archive – is a partnership between the British Library and findmypast to digitise up to 40 million newspaper pages from the British Library’s vast collection over a 10 year period.
Chronicling America – Search America’s historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present.
Clergy of the Church of England Database – launched in 1999 and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the CCEd makes available and searchable the principal records of clerical careers from 1540-1835 from over 50 archives in England and Wales with the aim of providing coverage of as many clerical lives as possible from the Reformation to the mid-nineteenth century.
Connected Histories – brings together a range of digital resources related to early modern and nineteenth-century Britain
Cyndi’s List – A comprehensive, categorized & cross-referenced list of links that point you to genealogical research sites online.
Deal Maritime & Local History Museum – The Museum is situated in the heart of Deal, just off the High Street, behind Deal Town Hall, which was built in 1803, and opposite St George’s Church and the Chapel Field.
Families in British India Society – Whether you are a genealogist, family historian or social historian researching India or South Asia between 1600 and 1947 our website can help you with your research. The Families In British India Society (FIBIS) is a self-help organisation devoted to members researching their British India family history and the background against which their ancestors led their lives in India under British rule.
Family Search – is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use our free Family Search records, resources, and services each year to learn more about their family history.
Find My Past – ‘For over a decade Findmypast has been bringing the past to life for millions of members across the globe. With over 4 billion records and 11 million historic newspaper pages to explore, Findmypast is the best place to discover your family’s story.’
Forebears – The main aim of the site is to bring together the wide variety of genealogical sources available on and off-line and catalogue them; so as to make them easily accessible by researchers looking for records relating to ancestors in a particular town, region or country.
Free BMD – FreeBMD is an ongoing project, the aim of which is to transcribe the Civil Registration index of births, marriages and deaths for England and Wales, and to provide free Internet access to the transcribed records. It is a part of the Free UK Genealogy family, which also includes FreeCEN (Census data) and FreeREG (Parish Registers).
GenUKI – provides a virtual reference library of genealogical information of particular relevance to the UK and Ireland. It is a non-commercial service, maintained by a charitable trust and a group of volunteers.
General Register Office – The General Register Office is part of Her Majesty’s Passport Office and oversees civil registration in England and Wales. We maintain the national archive of all births, marriages and deaths dating back to 1837
Genes Reunited – Genes Reunited, originally known as Genes Connected, is a genealogy website that was launched in the UK in 2003 as a sister-site to Friends Reunited. Since then it has grown to become one of the UK’s largest genealogy websites, with over 13 million members and over 780 million names listed. Genes Reunited holds millions of fully searchable newspaper pages in its British Newspaper Archive collection.
The Genealogist – TheGenealogist is a family history website that provides subscriptions for researchers to help search genealogy records in the United Kingdom. The site is run by Genealogy Supplies (Jersey) Ltd which is part of the S&N Group. Among its accomplishments, the company has completely transcribed the England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1911 inclusive.
S&N Genealogy Supplies – is the largest UK genealogy publisher and retailer, with over two decades of experience serving the needs of computer-based family historians. Founded in 1992, we publish and retail a broad range of family history research material, software, books, binders, and much more. We offer the widest choice of family history software and data CDs and are determined to provide you with the highest quality and keenest prices.
Historical Directories (University of Leicester) – A collection of digitised trade directories, part of the University of Leicester’s Special Collections Online, covering England and Wales from the 1760s to the 1910s.
I Announce – Over 4,575,000 obituaries, death notices, wedding announcements and all other family announcements, from 410 newspapers, updated daily.
The Internet Surname Database – Our database contains 50,000+ last names from Smith to Smiley and Aaron to Zywicki. Where does yours come from and what does it mean?
Kent Public House Archives – A pictorial walkthrough of Dover’s Public Houses. Now including the surrounding towns and villages.
Lost Pubs Project – Although there are 48,000 pubs still in existence in England today, four are closing every day of the week. This is the highest rate of closure since the 1904 Compensation Act saw 10% of pubs forced to close. These pubs rarely reopen as nowadays most are converted to residential or retail use. Help our community project to archive these lost pubs before they are forgotten for ever.
Maritime Heritage Project – The Ship Passenger site stems from The Maritime Heritage Project, created in 1997 to record the history of passengers, ships, captains, merchants and merchandise sailing into California during the mid-to-late 1800s.
Measuring Worth – MeasuringWorth is a service for calculating relative worth over time.
Old UK Photos – This website is a collection of old photos of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, including old photos of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the rest of the British Isles, and the Republic of Ireland (which of course is not in the United Kingdom). The website was initially launched as an aid to family historians and genealogists, but has now gone way beyond that. There are thousands of old photographs on this website – many never before seen.
Scotland’s People – one of the largest online sources of original genealogical information. If you are researching UK genealogy, your Scottish ancestry or building your Scottish family tree, we have more than 100 million records to look through. From Scottish census records, Scottish wills, birth certificates and death certificates, we have a comprehensive choice of Scottish records to bring your Scotland ancestry to life.
The Workhouse – The Workhouse evokes the grim Victorian world of Oliver Twist, but its story is a fascinating mix of social history, politics, economics and architecture. This site is dedicated to the workhouse – its buildings, inmates, staff and administrators, even its poets.
WikiTree – Our mission is to connect the human family on one tree that’s free and accessible to everyone.
Links from this page are provided for your information. I take no responsibility for the contents or reliability of the linked websites and do not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them. Listing shall not be taken as endorsement of any kind. I cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and I have no control over availability of the linked pages.
However, if a link has been struck through it indicates that link is broken.
Paul Willis