Historic Records News

It's hard to believe that this is only the company's second Easter. This time last year we had two employees. Fast forward twelve months and we have seven full time staff operating in three counties, in addition to dozens of dedicated part-time photographers and researchers up and down the country who continue to help us document and preserve records which family historians find useful when connecting with their ancestors. As most of us in the UK take a well-earned break for four days, we reflect on the 60 million records that Historic Records Limited has licensed since July 2023, and the many millions more which we are working on and which will see the light of day over the coming weeks and months. Happy Easter everyone.

Take a bow Steve, Paul, Alex, Kit, Niharika and Mengzhao. Between us we look after strategic direction, acquisition, digitisation, transcription, IT and infrastructure, research and field work. We don't always look this serious, but we are passionate about what we do. We are headquartered in Chelmsford, Essex in a grade-two listed building close to the city centre.

We've added a Men of 1914 page to the website to remember some of the men who disembarked overseas in 1914. Early arrivals, before the 23rd November 1914, would later be known as 'Old Contemptibles' and would be entitled to wear a clasp on their 1914 Star. Men arriving from the 23rd November 1914 and up to and including 31st December 1915, were entitled to wear the 1914-1915 Star. Essentially a blog, we'll add to this over the coming days, weeks, months and years. Every man has a story to be told, and every man deserves to be remembered. Pictured above, the incomplete medal group to Sapper William H Butt of the Royal Engineers who arrived overseas on the 9th August and was later awarded the French Medaille Militaire whilst serving with L Signal Company. William also served during the Second World War.

From a recently acquired collection of directories of Americans in France, this particular advert from the 1932 volume. We commenced digitisation yesterday and will complete within a couple of weeks. The volumes cover the period 1927 to 1940 and will be an essential resource for anyone with American ancestors who were resident in France during this time  

  The Historic Records cemetery photography project is looking for individuals to help us document the last resting places of our ancestors. Currently, this opportunity is limited to the English counties of Suffolk and Essex where much ground – literally – has already been covered.  If you are smart, respectful, respectfully dressed, and can point a camera phone at a headstone, you might be the individuals we are looking for. Hours to suit, but once committed, we’ll expect you to complete the work in a timely manner.  Independent travel, whilst not a prerequisite, will be useful as some cemeteries are a little off the beaten track. For more information about this opportunity, please send an email to niharika@historicrecords.co.uk.

To the Nordic Archive Symposium in Copenhagen, and the chance to catch up with old friends and explore new opportunities. This is the first foray overseas for Historic Records Limited but there is more travel planned for next month and a calendar steadily filling for 2024. The conference kicks off properly tomorrow, but delegates have been arriving all day, and Historic Records Limited was on a bus at 4am this morning, heading for Stansted and a 7am flight into Copenhagen. I am pretty well travelled generally, but Denmark is one country I have not visited before and so it's good to cross this one   off the list. On the menu tomorrow, the linklives project, a technology exhibition and computer assisted indexing, "assisted" being the optimal word here as machines have not yet wholly proven themselves against humans. And whilst we're on the subject of indexing, Historic Records Limited has already delivered over 3m indexed records in the last three months, and is on ...