The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.1 | June 2021

Local Group Programmes

Discovery –This is a better search tool. It is helpful to use the advance option that enables the search to be more focused: use of phrases (good for names); combinations of terms and the exclusion of some words. Date filters can also be specified. The order of results can be changed and even exported in an Excel spreadsheet format. The catalogue includes references to items found in other local archives as well. The ‘Online collections are extensive and include migration, military service records, pre-1858 wills and court cases. The Trafalgar ancestors’ database can be useful as about one sixth of the Navy personnel at the time were involved. UK Hospital records are available, but not online. Simon explained how TNA records reference numbers are deployed. Each item uses a hierarchical structure using the Department, record type, piece and item. The departments are government ones and include war, admiralty, MI5 etc. – so, war is ‘WO’. The ‘type’ includes things like ‘war diaries’ which are coded as numbers - ‘95’ etc. - and so a record might look like WO95/213/4. There is still a lot of information for us to find during lockdown, but we look forward to being able to visit TNA again in the future. (March) Employment Records – Colin Moretti Colin described the numerous resources we have available to track our ancestors’ occupations. To begin with he told us not to take too much notice of potentially misleading employment information we readily find in the census records and in GRO certificates - which is unsubstantiated and provided by the person concerned. More reliable information is available in printed trade directories and actual employment documents found online. Trade directories, such as Kelly’s and Pigot’s, were published annually and a year late but nevertheless provide a good deal of background information on the town and its tradesmen and gentry. The directories mainly served urban areas and cities and so many rural occupations were not included. Trade directories can be found in local record offices whilst some directories in London’s Guildhall Library date back centuries. The types of professions grew over time – for example the civil service, the military, healthcare (doctors and surgeons), teaching, the police and law, trade unions and the clergy. The Army, Navy and Air Force have extensive and easily found records. We were taken on a journey of professions each with their own sets of records and websites which are available either freely or by subscription. Some of the oldest employment records are apprenticeships which were usually private agreements, or indentures, between an employer and his apprentice’s guardian. Such agreements were encouraged by parishes to help out with the poor and these documents may still be found in local record offices. Some Inland Revenue stamp duty records exist (1710-1804) at the National Archives (TNA) and in Ancestry. TNA hold a large number of employment records many of which have not yet been digitised and will require personal research. These include the Metropolitan Police, railway workers and hospital staff.

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