I provide both a research and a transcription service 

In Scotland

I visit Scotland’s People Visitors Centre, (formerly New Register House) and the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh (including West Register House and less frequently the Mitchell Library and the Glasgow City Archives in Glasgow

AND 

In England

I visit The National Archives (formerly the Public Record Office) the London Metropolitan Archives, the Guildhall Library,   The British Library and their newspaper library at Colindale, The Principal Probate Registry, The LDS Family History Centre in Kensington and the Society of Genealogists in London.

The records at most of these archives are usually photocopiable and will be sent to you in the post on my return home.  I am also able to take digital photographs at many of these archives (not The British Library or The Principal Probate Registry). 

I am also willing to travel to other archives both in Scotland and England as long as my expenses can be covered 

Results are sent by email, usually within 24 - 48 hours of my return.

Click on the hyperlink to take you to the appropriate section

Scottish Research

Transcription of Birth, Marriage and Death Certificates 

Digital Images of Births, Marriage and Death Certificates and Old Parish Record Entries

Transcriptions from Old Parish Records 

Censuses 

Other Research Facilities 

Searching for Living Relatives 

Transcriptions from Testaments, Inventories, Sasines and Kirk Sessions

(Not in Latin or Scots Secretary Hand) 

Glasgow City Archives and the Mitchell Library

English Research

The National Archives (Formerly the Public Record Office) 

London Metropolitan Archives and the Guildhall Library 

The British Library

The Society of Genealogists 

Specialist Research

Methods of Payment 

Scottish Research

Services and Costs

Birth, Death and Marriage Certificate Transcription

If you know the exact GRO(S) reference (year, registration district number, and entry number)

For example  1867    603      25

Birth and Death Certificates                       £4                  per certificate

Marriage Certificates                                   £4.50               per certificate    

These transcriptions available from 1907 – 2006 for births; 1927 – 2006 for marriages; 1957 – 2006 for deaths               

Before this time digitised images of certificates are available from 1855 onwards. I can collect copies of these and scan and send them to you by email.  

Cost of Scanned images                                                     £1                    per certificate           

If you have used the LDS Church’s films for example the General Indexes to the Civil Records (after 1855) at www.ktb.net/~dwills/scotref/13302-bmdtables.htm you will need to find out the number of the registration district as these films only give parish names not numbers.

A list of these is available at www.ktb.net/~dwills/scotref/13310-parishlist.htm 

If you do not have access to exact references

If you can provide name(s), a date and a place and some qualifying information, for example the names of parents, the cost would be £5 for birth and death certificates and £5.50 for marriage certificates. (As long as it’s not John Smith et al!) 

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Old Parish Records

These have now been digitised and can be scanned an emailed to you

Cost:   £1 per image

Please note Old Parish Records were only as good as the person who kept them. They very rarely include as much information as does a certificate.

Burial information in particular is scarce. However these have now been digitised and are available as printouts.

Censuses

1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses

Cost    £1 per family group (Plus the cost of any necessary search time)

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Other Research Facilities

Cross Check on Female Deaths

This is a facility that allows you to look for the maiden and married name at the same time.

Available only during the years of Civil Registration (1855 or later)

There is no alternative spelling facility available with this, so if a name can be spelled a variety of ways, each spelling has to be checked separately. 

Cross Check on Bride and Groom Names for Marriages

This facility allows you to look for both names at the same time for a marriage. It can be used with or without Christian names. Available only during the years of Civil Registration (1855 or later) There is no alternative spelling facility available with this, so if a name can be spelled a variety of ways, each spelling has to be checked separately. Unfortunately, if the bride and groom have the same surname, this facility is not available either. 

Cross Check on deaths using an age parameter

This facility allows you to put in an approximate age at a particular year so that you narrow down the possible certificates to look through.

Available 1855-1858 and 1870 to 2008

Alternative spelling is available. 

Please be aware that there are no Certificates prior to 1855 and that Old Parish Records were only as good as the person who kept them. They very rarely include as much information as does a certificate and death information in particular is scarce. 

Monumental Inscriptions

New Register House holds a collection of these from various areas of Scotland and I am happy to look through these and transcribe details. 

Costs for all of the above:

Minimum:     £7 for a quarter of an hour search plus the transcription charge if found 

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Research Fees 

For Birth, Death or Marriage certificates within Civil Registration (1855 onwards) or Old Parish Records prior to 1855

Cost    £28 per hour [with a minimum of 15 minutes (£7)]

Remember the more information that you can give me the quicker the search will be.  The price for each certificate or record will be quoted to you when you make your request.

Family Tree Research 

Although it is more interesting to put together and complete research yourself, not all of us have the time or facilities for this. Please contact me if you would like me to do all of the research for you. The final result will be a Family Tree Maker Book. 

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Searching for Living Relatives

If you or your ancestors moved away from Scotland, I am happy to trace to see whether there are any relatives still living in Scotland now. 

Cost £28 per hour  plus certificates and census material

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National Archives of Scotland

(Formerly the Scottish Records Office) 

This is where Testaments, Inventories, Sasines and Kirk Sessions amongst others are stored. These can be invaluable research tools that can add ‘meat to the bones’ of research and confirm links between ancestors.

Testaments

Testaments and Inventories up to 1901 are available on line at http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/  after this date calendars of confirmation are available for consultation at National Archives of Scotland. The documents can usually be photocopied.

Kirk Sessions

These can sometimes find that missing or ‘naughty’ ancestor for you. For example an illegitimate child may not have been baptised, and the parent(s) may have had to go before the Kirk to be rebuked. Not every book for every area is available, so please check with NAS first.  (You can check using their online catalogue at http://www.nas.gov.uk/onlineCatalogue/

using the reference CH2 for Church of Scotland and CH3 for Free Church.) 

Court Hearings and Judgements

Again these can add further detail to your research, whether it is a divorce, sequestration, paternity suit record, result of a precognition, or an ancestor being tried for murder. These are held at West Register House. Availability of the records can be checked at the NAS online catalogue.

Again, it’s best to check with West Register House to see whether the records of your ancestor are available and usable..  You can email them at wsr@nas.gov.uk

Sasines

These ‘transfers of property and money’ can sometimes prove the ‘missing link’ between ancestors. They are also invaluable for doing research on your house or other properties. The abridgements from these have now all been digitised, making research in them much quicker. The Sasine Abridgements have now been digitised and can be photocopied rather than transcribed

Cost for research and transcription         £28 an hour

There are lots of other interesting documents that are available at the National Archives of Scotland.. It’s amazing what you can turn up by just putting your name into their catalogue search engine.

If you are not sure what any of these documents contain, please visit the NAS website at http://www.nas.gov.uk/guides/default.asp

These indispensable guides are full of useful information as to what is available

Please note that some documents need to be ordered  well in advance.

Glasgow City Archives and The Mitchell Library

Website: http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/Residents/Library_Services/The_Mitchell/Archives/

These hold the records of the former Glasgow Corporation and most of those for the county councils and parish authorities within the former Strathclyde Region, except for Argyllshire and Ayrshire. The records of various families and estates in the Glasgow area are held.

Those that may be of particular interest include: 

The records of the Glasgow incorporation of trades, including membership lists 

Poor law records, including detailed applications for poor relief to the parishes of Glasgow from 1851, Barony from 1861 and Govan from 1876, and a number of other parishes from various dates until 1948 

Burgess roll for Glasgow 

Records of hundreds of schools, often including admission registers 

Estate records with information about tenants  

Registers of some local government employees, notably the police 

There is a large collection of newspapers and periodicals, many of which contain obituaries and death notices. 

The records are held of twenty Glasgow cemeteries covering the period from the 18^th century to the 1950s, as well as lair plans and registers of burials in intra-mural burial grounds, 1870-1950. 

In order to ascertain whether the information you require is available, I would recommend that you email them at archives@cls.glasgow.gov.uk  

I have produced a document which gives further details of what is available at this repository. 

Costs for researching here are £28 an hour plus any photocopying and postage charges

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English Research

Services and Costs 

The system for researching certificates in England is far more complicated and therefore more expensive, as you cannot view certificates in advance, but have to buy each one. 

I will look through the GRO Indexes for references to birth, marriage and death certificates from 1837 and order certificates for you.

If you live an impossible distance from an LDS Church Family History Centre, I will order in films of censuses and Old Parish Records and research through these for you. 

My local archives are in Lincoln and have a great deal of information of interest to genealogists interested in the Lincolnshire area and I am always happy to research for you here. 

Research cost is £20 an hour 

Certificate Ordering Service

As long as you know the reference you can now order certificates on line from all countries at

http://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/  

You may be able to find the reference of the certificate you require on line at

http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/cgi/search.pl otherwise you will need to have either found this in the GRO indexes. I can search these on your behalf.

If you would like me to order a certificate on your behalf the cost will be £14.25 per certificate

Censuses 

I have access to the 1841, 1 851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 census for the whole of England, Wales, Channel Islands and Isle of Man

The National Archives (Formerly the Public Record Office)

I am willing to make visits here on the basis of demand. There is a wealth of material available here, the references for most of which can be looked up in their on line catalogue which can be seen at at http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  

There are also various research guides at

http://www.catalogue.nationalarchives.gov.uk/researchguidesindex.asp

If you do not have time to search the catalogue  I am happy to do this for you. as it can be quite difficult to understand.

Please remember that many documents, , particularly those of First World War Soldiers , (which were burned during bombing raids in World War 2.) are not always accessible. So even if I cannot find the actual record, research time still has to be paid for. 

The great majority of documents can be photocopied, or I can make copies with a digital camera. 

Costs are £28 an hour plus photocopying and postage charges

1911 Census of England

The whole country is now available at The National Archives and I can print out A3 copies of entries for 50p an entry plus a little research time. You can use the index at http://www.1911census.co.uk/search/tnaform.aspx?x=1786605823 to find the people in which you are interested otherwise there will be a charge for research time.

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London Metropolitan Archives and the Guildhall Library

If you have relatives from London, there is a wealth of information held at these repositories in the centre of London.  Many of their records are catalogued at http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/londonGenerations/

And 

http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/leisure_heritage/libraries_archives_museums_galleries/city_london_libraries/guildhall_lib.htm  

with  searchable databases of their holdings. Of most interest to genealogists are all the Old Parish Records for London, Associations of London, Court Records, Health Authorities and Hospital Records, Records from Poorhouses, Prisons and School Records. 

Costs are £28 an hour plus photocopying and postage charges.

The British Library

This library holds a tremendous amount of genealogically interesting material. Of particular interest to genealogists are the baptism, marriage and death certificates of the India Office and information about officers in the Indian Army. 

Information is catalogued at the A2A site at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/   using British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections in the Location of Archives section. 

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/history/genealogy/indiaofficerecordsfamilyhistory/familyresearch.html

gives you helpful information about genealogical research at the British Library 

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/findhelpsubject/history/genealogy/indiaofficerecordsfamilyhistory/ecclesiastical/eccrecords.html

tells you about the births, marriages and deaths, the Ecclesiastical Records 

There is searchable online catalogue at http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/?func=file&file_name=login-bl-list

Costs are £28 an hour

The Society of Genealogists

I am a member of this organisation, and therefore have all the records in their library available for me to research.

Their website is at http://www.sog.org.uk/

They have a huge collection of Old Parish Records available to research. There is an online catalogue available at http://62.32.98.6/S10312UKStaff/OPAC/index.asp 

There is also a Surname Document Collection at http://www.sog.org.uk/library/surnames_intro.shtml

Costs are £28 an hour

LDS Family History Centre, Kensington

This library holds microfilms of extensive areas of the UK and it saves travel to individual archives. Their online catalogue is at

http://www.londonfhc.org/

Costs are £28 an hour

Specialised Research 

Ancestral Visa

Want to come and work in the UK?

Do you need research for an Ancestral Visa?

There is more information on this at http://www.accommodationlondon.net/oldsite/newsite/jobs/ancestralvisas.html 

I can do the research for and get the necessary certificates for you. 

Cost £28 an hour plus the costs of certificates

Probate Research

Has someone in your family died intestate? Do you need to search to see whether there are other living members of the family? 

I can do the research for and get the necessary certificates for you. 

Cost £28 an hour plus the costs of certificates and other research. 

Lincolnshire Research

I am happy to research at my local archives,  where there is a huge amount of data on Lincolnshire, including areas which are now part of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire, formerly Humberside.

A list of Old Parish Records and Bishops Transcripts held can be found at

http://microsites.lincolnshire.gov.uk/archives/section.asp?docid=28375&catid=6726 

Their general site address is http://microsites.lincolnshire.gov.uk/archives/index.asp?catId=6173 

Many of Lincolnshire’s records are also catalogued at the Access 2 Archives site http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/ using Lincolnshire Archives in the Location of Archives section. . There is also an online catalogue of their resources at http://culturalcollections.lincolnshire.gov.uk/kbroker/lincs/archives/search.jsp

Methods of Payment

Payment may be made by personal cheque in GB pounds, made payable to Helen Curtis or  Genealogical Services and sent to my home address, which I would send you should you decide to use my service.  

For those without access to a sterling account:

I have a PayPal account which allows you to pay me with a credit or debit card, using my email address of Helen@genealogicalservices.co.uk  If you decide to use this, then I will send you a PayPal payment request in order to facilitate payment.