National Archives Digitised records to be free while the NA is closed

[BushInn1746]

Hello

Our ancestors names may be hidden within a Volume or File (of that Catalogue Reference) itself and therefore not appear in the search return, which quite often only gives the File or Volume Title.

Some TNA Volumes and Files are already scanned, name indexed and searchable on subscription sites.

Names contained within TNA Files and Volumes (not indexed by name and not on Subscription sites) but digitised by TNA, Kew, some can be searched through page by page for names.

Sometimes ancestors might appear in certain records and sometimes they don't.

Usually the first part of TNA Catalogue Reference denotes the record Reference and often the Government Department or Service creating the file.

Inland Revenue (ref IR) Will Abstracts catalogued on Discovery by Name
If your Ancestors left a Will Registered with an English Probate Registry and assessed for Duty between late 1790s and circa 1820.

Then an Abstract of the Will usually with Executors and Beneficiaries named might be useful (these are not the full Will copies available from a Probate Registry).

They are in the 'Inland Revenue' record series "IR 26"

Try your own surname in the "Exact word or phrase" box AND enter "IR 26" in the "Any of these references" box on the Advanced Search page, to bring up these particular former Inland Revenue records.

Make sure you leave a one space gap between IR and 26

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/advanced-search

A search example of HOOD under IR 26 should give these 16 results covering a 20 year period approx (the other years got destroyed in a fire) ...

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_ep=Hood&_cr=IR%2026&_dss=range&_ro=any&_st=adv

Mark

[Bookbox]

The search functions are pretty poor.

I am sure I have posted this before, but when I once employed a professional researcher for some national archives stuff, she said their catalogue was called Discovery “ because you have to discover how to use it”

For anyone having trouble with Discovery, there’s a basic introductory podcast here ...
https://media.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php/introduction-to-discovery-the-national-archives-catalogue/

... and a free webinar coming on Tuesday 19 May (register through Eventbrite)
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/top-level-tips-using-discovery-tickets-103129555276?aff=homepage

[HughC]

The quality of the images is atrocious, too.

What a load of amateurs they are!

[rosie99]

The quality of the images is atrocious, too.

What a load of amateurs they are!

There has been nothing wrong with the images that I have downloaded, is it a particular data set that you are looking at.

[HughC]

Everything I have looked at (mainly military records) has been grey in grey, sometimes barely legible.  I suppose one shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I wouldn't pay £3.50 under normal conditions.
They clearly have a lot to learn about scanning.

One man with middle name John was indexed with middle initial R.
That's the sort of crass error we've come to expect from Ancestry,
but not from an official body such as the National Archives.

[majm]

I am not used to using TNA web site but I have not found any difficulties in downloading various digitised records for several of my ancestors.  I have found them easily, downloaded them easily and not had any issues with 'grey on grey'

I congratulate TNA on this initiative.  Currently reading an 1823 will full of details about my ancestors .... nothing crass found .... 

JM

[rosie99]

One man with middle name John was indexed with middle initial R.
That's the sort of crass error we've come to expect from Ancestry,
but not from an official body such as the National Archives.

Sadly that is true of most data sets, there will always be errors.  That is why we always say on here you need to see the original.

I think also that some of the TNA transcripts may have been done by the likes of Ancestry & F M P when they were awarded the contracts to publish them on their websites

[Mean_genie]

Images in black and white means that they are scanned from microfilm or fiche. The original filming might have been done decades ago - when I first visited Kew in the late 1980s loads of records were on film, so a lot of filming must have been done some time before then. Some records that have been scanned from original documents much more recently are really good, and they're in colour. I've found some interesting stuff in Poor Law Union correspondence MH12, although only only a small amount of it seems to be digitised and indexed

[ABradley]

Hi,

I have attempted to download an 1808 will but they still want payment

Andrew

OK I had to sign in again - download completed