MONMOUTHSHIRE
The information on this page, and on the accompanying
Town & Parish pages is organised by the set of subject
headings which the LDS Family History Library use for categorising
genealogical research material. Below are the available headings for
Shropshire; but see
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Description in 1720
"The County of MONMOUTH
[Map (above) shows location],
is 80 Miles in Circumference, contains about 340000 Acres, 6
Hundreds, 7 Market Towns & only one Borough [viz. Monmouth the shire town], 137 Parishes
& about 6400 Houses. The Air is healthfull & temperate, the soil is hilly and woody, the
Valleys fruitfull, yeilding abundance of Corn and Grass, as the Hills doe Cattle, Sheep &
Goats, &c. Cheif Commodities are Corn, Cattle, Sheep, and its Rivers particularly the Uske
and the Wye, are full of Salmon and Trout." [Emanuel Bowen, Britannia Depicta, 1720]
- All Monmouthshire pages may be searched using the
GENUKI Search engine.
The GENUKI Parish Locator
may be used to identify which town or parish a place is located in.
- There is a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) file
for these Monmouthshire pages.
- Researchers may find one or more of the
Monmouthshire Mailing Lists useful in their research; and Monmouthshire
Surnames are listed within Graham Jaunay's
Welsh Names Research Directory.
- FreeCEN is an ongoing volunteer-based project
to provide a 'free to view' online searchable database of the 19th century UK census returns.
Volunteers are being sought to assist with transcribing - visit the
FreeCen Project page to see each
county's status as well as a FAQ for volunteers.
- A list of the major items (including external links) in the Monmouthshire section of
GENUKI is provided on a separate page of Quick Links.
- Hale Family History site - a
Monmouthshire book list.
- Monmouthshire - Bibliography - Books
of General Interest for Family Historians.
Moved to separate page 14 May 2006.
- See also the books on South Wales in the General section of the
Glamorgan Book pages of GENUKI.
- Wiles, Eric. Publications of the Caerleon Antiquarian Association, later Monmouthshire and
Caerleon Antiquarian Association, now Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association.
Monmouthshire Antiquary 13 (1997), p.59-66.
- The searchable LDS website - IGI and Familysearch
Note on using IGI Batch Numbers:
It is not always easy to locate your ancestors in the IGI using the search mechanisms provided at
the above LDS site. Manually typing the batch numbers into the IGI search screen can be tedious.
Hugh Wallis has made an exhaustive search of the likely ranges of batch numbers and created a
database of those numbers and the source records that they apply to. A very powerful feature included
is a hotlink from each batch number to the actual search engine provided at the Family Search site,
including the ability to enter the surname you are looking for. This makes it very easy to search all the
batches for a particular geographic location using just the last name you are searching for - something
that is not possible directly from the LDS site without doing a lot of typing. This is
Hugh Wallis's site.
-
Monmouthshire Marriages - Mike John's site with a groom's surname index of
Monmouthshire marriages, 1725-1812 - this is currently (4/2004) about 40% complete for the county.
-
Monmouthshire Catholic Mission Records - section on Mike John's site.
- The Rowland Family
site has a map of the Monmouthshire parishes, with direct links to many Monmouthshire
parish records indexes online - or for a straight listing of the parishes concerned go to the
Monmouthshire Parish Register Transcriptions site.
- A List of Monmouthshire Transcriptions extracted and indexed
by David Woolven.
- The Society of Genealogists web site has a
list of their holdings of
Parish Register Copies for Monmouthshire.
- Brett Langston has provided details of the
Monmouthshire Registration Districts 1837-1930.
Certificates of birth, death and marriage can be obtained from the
Superintendent Registrars at the following District Register Offices:
Records post-1937 for Monmouthshire are held at the Monmouthshire District
Register Office in
Abergavenny.
Note: Certificates of birth, death and marriage can be obtained
locally only from the Register Office for the District in which they were
issued - or if the District no longer exists, the Office to which
its registers have been moved.
If ordering from a District (Superintendant's) Register Office, please note the following:
- the cost of a certificate is £7.00 (from 1st April 2003)
- send a Sterling cheque payable to the Superintendent Registrar
plus return postage or two International Reply Coupons;
- the General Register Office (GRO) Index references (available via FreeBMD) are of no value;
- for marriage certificates, the precise place of marriage must be given;
- Civil Registration in England and Wales began on July 1st 1837.
- If you have a GRO reference, you can now order certificates online via
the General Register Office's own website, and their
Certificate Ordering Service for the same price as locally.
You can obtain a GRO reference in several ways:-
- Searching microfilm or fiche at a Library or LDS Family History Centre.
- FreeBMD is an ongoing project to make the General
Register Office (GRO) Indexes freely available online. More volunteers are needed and details of how you can help are available on-site.
- findmypast.com (formerly 1837online) - images of the complete BMD indexes from the GRO online. Fee payable
- The images are also available on Ancestry.co.uk for which
a subscription provides access to a wide range of other records.
- The Prison Service Museum near Rugby houses HM Prison Service's historical
collection of exhibits, illustrating the history of imprisonment from medieval times
to the present day. Housed in a converted stable block, the museum contains
reconstructions of Victorian prison architecture, and exhibits include the
last set of Gibbet Irons used in England. Smaller items include bone
carvings and paintings made by prisoners in their cells, and a nineteenth
century sampler embroidered by a female prisoner from her own hair
Admission to the museum is by appointment only, please contact:-
The Curator,
HM Prison Service Museum,
Newbold Revel,
Rugby,
CV23 0TH
Tel: 01788 834168
[Information compiled from "The Penal Lexicon Home Page",
formerly at www.penlex.org.uk/pages/index.html.]
- Kelly's Directory of
Monmouthshire1901 - a complete transcript.
- There are many directories published for a range of years, these below are a small selection;
- Kelly's directory of Monmouthshire and principal towns and places in south Wales. London : Kelly, 1884.
- Pigot & Co.
Directory of Monmouthshire. 1844
- Slater's (late Pigot & Co.) royal national and commercial directory and topography of the counties of Gloucestershire, Monmouthshire and North and South Wales, and a classified directory of the town of Liverpool. Manchester, London, 1858.
- Leicester University's
Digital Library of Historical Directories for England and Wales.
- For help finding your ancestors onboard ship -
The Ships List - of
particular interest are the large number of transcribed passenger lists,
and records of some Marriages at Sea. Added 10 Dec 2007.
- The section of The National Gazetteer (1868) relating to
Monmouthshire - transcribed by Colin Hinson.
- The transcription of the section for Miscellaneous Descriptions from
the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson. Included
here are the descriptions of major topological features (rivers, hills &c.)
and a descriptions of the county hundred divisions.
- You may also find it worthwhile searching in the GENUKI Gazetteer:-
The GENUKI Gazetteer covers the whole of England, Wales and Scotland and can be searched by
place-name (or part of a place-name) or Ordnance Survey Grid Reference (six-figure, eg SO500120).
If there are multiple place-names matching the name you enter, you will be presented initially with a
drop-down list of the matching place-names with their distances and bearings from Monmouth.
-
Geography of South Wales - part of the Coalfield Web Materials site.
- A Vision of Britain Through Time -
information about your home area from the 2001 census, and from each British
census back to 1801. Presented both as maps of the whole country and as graphs
showing change over time.
-
The Francis Frith Collection - a collection of
over 700,000 photographs of the UK, Europe and the Middle East taken by the
Victorian photographer Francis Frith.
- Website for Welsh Heritage and Culture -
Gathering the Jewels.
Added 11 Aug 2008.
- A digital library of medieval and modern sources of the history of the British Isles -
British History Online.
Notable souces include Journals of the House of Commons and House of
Lords, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, and the Victoria County History.
Added 14 Oct 2005.
- An
Encyclopaedia of British History: 1700-1950 - useful for seeing
local events against a national perspective. Scroll down the introductory
page on this site to see topics - Monarchy, Child Labour, The Railways, &c.
- The Domesday Book
site - "to enable visitors to find out the history of the Domesday Book and to
give an insight into life at the time of its compilation". Note this site does not
provide the original text, but does include a list settlements existing in 1086.
Listed with Gloucestershire are Caerleon, Caerwent, Caldicot, Chepstow,
Llanvair-Discoed and Portskewett.
- Hale Family History site - a short history.
- Hale Family History site - links to ancient
Gwent history sites.
- BBC Wales site -
Monmouthshire - the Historic County.
Quote: "Monmouthshire was created in 1536 from the marcher lordships
of Newport, Abergavenny, Monmouth, Chepstow, Caerleon and Usk."
Updated 9 Sep 2006.
- Nelson, Lynn H -
The Normans in South Wales, 1070-1171. Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1966.
- Pat Johnson has a large collection of original
Family Deeds. Abstracts, with name and parish indexes are provided onsite,
with transcriptions of the full documents available for a modest fee. In addtion, the original
deed may also be available for purchase if required. Added 19 Sep 2007.
- Mike Durtnall is providing a country-wide collection of
Historical Manuscripts
Pages recording details of deeds that have been offered for sale on eBay
and in auction catalogues. In most cases whereabouts of the documents will be
unknown, but sufficient details of the property involved and of buyers, sellers,
mortages, &c. is provided to make them a useful research tool.
Added 9 Mar 2007.
- 1873 Return of Owners of Land for
Monmouthshire provided by Richard Hopkins.
- Robin Alston has created
The Country House Database, a very useful reference source,
"listing country houses in the British Isles from the late medieval
period to ca. 1850, together with an index to all the families so far
traced as having occupied them." Includes a section on
Monmouthshire.
- Access to various satellite map sites (Google, MS Live, &c.) via the
convenient front end of Flash Earth.
Added 16 Jun 2007.
- The London Ancestor
site has maps from the 1885 Boundary Commissioners report for all parts
of the British Isles, including
Monmouthshire (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1885)
- A most useful set of maps for the whole of England and Wales,
showing parish boundaries, on a one inch to the mile scale, is available on
CD-ROM for a modest price - see:
Kain, R.J.P., Oliver, R.R.,
Historic Maps
of England and Wales: Boundaries before 1850. Available on CD from
History Data Service, UK Data Archive, 17 May 2001. SN: 4348.
- The Old Maps web site
has a wonderful series of 1:10,560 scale historical maps for
the whole of the UK available on-line.
- The
Genmaps site contains a fine collection of Old Maps of the British
Isles for Genealogists and Historians. In particular, see
Old Maps of Monmouthshire.
- The above Genmaps Links pages lists
Great Britain - Medieval Maps, which in turn provides several maps
including an intriguing
Ecclesiastical Map of the British Isles in the Middle Ages,
which shows the principal Monasteries, demonstrating some of the
earliest centres of habitation and influence.
- Detailed Maps of the area you may be interested in Monmouthshire
are viewable at the
UK Street Map Page.
The site provides a most useful service, with superb address searching
and street map facilities for anywhere in mainland Great Britain.
- The
Rowland Family site has a map of the Monmouthshire parishes.
- Hale Family History site -
1907 map of Monmouthshire.
-
Welsh county maps by Samuel Lewis and published in 1833.
- Clear, Large Type and Braille Maps. Added 11 Feb 2006.
David Hawgood has produced
Maps of Monmouthshire with Braille labels (large print labels) to help people
with visual disabilities, with similar
Tactile and large print Maps for other English counties.
[NB David's source, Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England
1835 includes Monmouthshire]
There is an article on David's website,
Production of Tactile maps with Braille labels
explaining how these maps have been produced.
- Medical Heritage of Great Britain,
a site produced by the Bath & Wessex Medical History Group,
providing detailed information on a county level of the history of medical
treatments, and locations of some associated buildings.
- Welsh Mariners by Dr Reg
Davies - includes a searchable database of over 17,000 Welsh born (or Wales resident) Master
mariners, mates and engineers who held certificates of competency or service; in practice it is an
index of men active from 1850 to 1945 in the merchant navy.
- Lighthouse Personnel in
England and Wales and the Channel Islands 1841-1910. Includes:- Table of Keepers;
Table of Stations by county; Location map of the lighthouse sites.
- Cardiff & Bristol Channel Pilots
1810-1979. An ongoing database by Phil Roderick of pilots, many Cardiff,
also Bristol, Pill, Swansea, Neath, Newport and Barry. Ports covered are Cardiff, Barry, Bristol,
Swansea, Newport and Bridgewater.
- Maritime History. Although not
particularly Glamorgan related here are a large number of links to websites dealing with maritime
history. By Bob Sanders.
- Two very comprehensive sites featuring Castles and Fortifications -
CastleUK.net, and
The Gatehouse.
Added 3 Sep 2005.
- Information about Castles in Monmouthshire may also be found on
the Castle Wales website.
Added 3 Sep 2005.
- The Age of Nelson - a
website providing general information about the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars 1793-1815, and specifically searchable databases of those present at
Trafalgar (and more) and of all Commissioned Naval Officers 1787-1822.
- Names from Musters of the Monmouthshire Militia 1781-82
are available for purchase on floppy disk or microfiche through
Family History Indexes
(the link to
Militia Musters is part way down the page).
- The Royal Regiment of Wales was formed in
1969 by the amalgamation of two of Wales' most famous and distinguished regiments, namely The
South Wales Borderers (24th Foot) and The Welch Regiment (41st/69th Foot).
- See also
Museum Collection.
- The Monmouthshire Regiment in 1914-18.
-
The Cambrian Index online. The Cambrian was the first
English-language newspaper published in Wales and editions cover
1804-1930. Swansea Library provide a searchable index to articles.
Added 24 Oct 2005.
- The Newspaper Library at Colindale - my current information (October 2007) is
that the BL is going to close Colindale, transferring its archives to Boston Spa.
Newspapers will be viewable on film only at the British Library, until such time as
their holdings are digitised. See the British Library's
Newspapers Digitisation Project for up-to-date details of research facilities.
Updated 13 Nov 2008.
- South Wales Argus.
Links to Newspapers' sites are provided not only for the Newspaper
content, but also because they may contain links to other items
or sites of local interest.
- The Worshipful Company of Curriers -
information about the history of this trade. Added 1 Apr 2008.
- The Virtual Waterways Archive -
"Hundreds of years of British waterway history brought together in one
online catalogue". Added 19 Nov 2007.
- Victorian Professional Photographers in Wales
1850-1925 - compiled by Mari Alderman; includes sources and a bibliography. Added 6 Oct 2006.
- Coalfield Web Materials. University of Wales,
Swansea. ".......... aims to improve lifelong learning opportunities by stimulating in the local
history and cultural heritage of South Wales. It offers digital versions of original documentary and
audiovisual material relating to the history and development of the South Wales Coalfield......"
Here are direct links to sections of the site;
- Miners' Strikes, 1972, 1974
& 1984 - a NLW site.
- The Miners' Next Step and
the General Strike of 1926 .... "The Great Unrest is the term used to describe the years
between 1908 and 1914 when Wales, and indeed Britain, saw many industrial conflicts such as the
Cambrian Combine Strike, the Tonypandy Riots as well as a number of Suffragette protests."
- Welsh Coal Mines.
- Railway companies
which operated in Carmarthenshire, Glamorgan & Monmouthshire plus some in adjoining areas
which ran into the former counties. By Bob Sanders.
- Ian Winstanley's Coal
Mining History Resource Centre Probably the most comprehensive source for mining deaths -
some 65,000 names of people who died or suffered injury in the mines of Great Britain from 1850 to 1909.
- Miners' Advice site.
The Collieries of Wales section includes features/photographs relating to the following mines;
Abertysswg - Bargoed - Bersham - Big Pit - Britannia - Celynen - Cwmtillery - Deep Navigation-Elliots -
Ferndale - Groesfaen - Llanbradach - Mardy - Marine - Markham - Nantgarw - Navigation - Oakdale -
Ogilvie - Old Pit - Penalta - Pochin - Point of Ayr - Senghenydd-Six Bells - Taff Merthyr - Tower.
- Infomation
about the South Wales Coalfield Collection can be
found at the S.W.C.C website.
- Monmouthshire Brecon and Abergavenny
Canal Trust.
- The Restoration of the Severn Princess site looks at the
efforts to restore the last Severn Ferry which plied between Aust, just north
of Bristol, and Beachley, near Chepstow - working
daily until the opening of the Severn Road Bridge. Unfortunately it is no longer
available offline, but archived versions exist - thanks to the
Wayback Machine -
see
Archived version of www.severnprincess.co.uk, and click on one of the listed dates.
Note: these pages are well worth a visit, but as the link is to
archived versions, some internal links may no longer work.
- The Workhouse
a site "dedicated to the workhouse - its buildings,
its inmates, its staff and administrators, and even its poets..."
created by Peter Higginbotham - promises to be a rich source of reference.
- The Rossbret Web site
provides extensive information about Workhouses and Poor Law Institutions,
but also includes Asylums, Almshouses, Gaols (Prisons), Dispensaries,
Hospitals (Infirmaries), Reformatories (Industrial Schools), and Orphanages,
in many cases listing individual premises.
- Monmouthshire wills : proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1560-1601. Cardiff :
South Wales Record Society, 1997. 256p.
-
A History of Education in Wales (book).
- If you are interested in finding out whether your
dearest school friends are also researching their family trees,
check out Friends United,
a site devoted to reuniting old school and college friends.
- Mother Bedford -
"a website devoted primarily to the history of Old-Bedford County,
Pennsylvania during the American Revolutionary War period" -
a fascinating site including items of general historical interest eg:
- Apposite to the time of adding:
The Celebration of Christmas.
- Examples of music our ancestors may have enjoyed:
The Music of the 1770s: a Directory.
-
Gazetteer of Markets and Fairs in England and Wales to 1516.
The Gazetteer, compiled by Dr Samantha Letters is a catalogue of Markets and Fairs
in Medieval England and Wales. First comprehensive National Survey, with detailed
information about grants of Charters to all Market Towns.
-
Victorian Social History: An Overview - Public Health,
Education, Conditions of Life and Labour.
- Costume
History - from Ancient Babylon through to 1990s - a very comprehensive
site on Fashion and Dress through the ages. Has images to illustrate
what my great*6 aunt Mary OUTRAM might have been wearing on top of her
"second best stays", one of the items she left in her will of 1769
to a young female relative!
- The E 179 Database
(on the National Archives website) contains detailed information about over
26,000 documents relating to the taxation of lay people in England and Wales
between c.1200 and c.1700. These documents are likely to contain many names.
This county is maintained by
Rosemary Lockie with help and information
provided by a number of other volunteers.
[Beginning on 11th June 2004. Page created by Phil Stringer and updated 30 Apr 2004 by Gareth Hicks]
© Copyright GENUKI and Contributors 1996-2008, &c.
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About GENUKI as an Organisation
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URL of this page: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/wal/MON/index.html
[Adopted 11 Jun 2004. Last updated 22 Nov 2008 - 10:05 by Rosemary Lockie]
