AROUND BRITAIN
Jonathan Scott returns to England’s secondlargest county to find out what’s in store for researchers with yellowbelly ancestors
Find your Lincolnshire forebears
Lincs to the Past is a valuable resource and a recommended starting point
Agriculture has been the driving economic force of Lincolnshire for centuries, although many heavy engineering firms flourished here from around the mid-19th century. It is a county dotted with market towns, historic landmarks and maritime communities, and where residents were nicknamed ‘yellowbellies’.
Some towns, such as Grimsby, became the heart of a thriving fishing industry during the 19th century, while others became synonymous with tourism. Skegness was the stomping ground of the world-famous Jolly Fisherman, an image first printed in 1908 but endlessly reprinted, reworked and parodied. Billy Butlin opened the first of his holiday camps here in 1936.
There are a number of archives and libraries across the county that can help you in your research. The North East portion of Lincolnshire was formerly known as Humberside, and this area has its own archive that still operates in Grimsby (of which more below). Meanwhile Lincoln, alongside the Newport Arch, a Norman castle and world-famous cathedral, is home to the main county archive service.
Lincolnshire Archives was founded in 1948, and its current home opened in 1991. Facilities here include a public search room with study tables, microfiche and microfilm readers, computers with access to Ancestry Library Edition and parts of Findmypast, free wi-fi, a refreshment area, an office library, reprographics facilities and displays.
Collections development manager Mike Rogers says: “We hold a wide range of original resources, typical of a county record office. Key sources for family historians include parish registers, Bishops’ Transcripts, wills and inventories, Quarter Sessions records, workhouse registers and school registers.” Upstairs is the Tennyson Research Centre, which holds the libraries of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his family, with manuscripts, illustrations, photographs and objects, editions and critical works relating to the poet.
Mike says that for any genealogical research, prior appointments are recommended, as are advance orders of (up to six) documents. “Many of our catalogues can be viewed online at Lincs to the Past ( www. lincstothepast.com) so firsttime visitors can find useful references before they arrive. We are part of the CARN reader ticket system, so new users will need to bring along proof of their signature and address.”
Local photographs
Lincs to the Past is a very valuable resource and a recommended starting point for researchers new to the area. It is home to parish registers, maps, regimental rolls, asylum case books and registers, and local photographs. It also incorporates a database of Lincolnshire war memorials and those who appear on them. Mike says they are continually adding new material to the site, plus
it is steadily improving as registered users can add tags or index entries to images, which are then incorporated into indexes.
Mike has advice for firsttimers on the hunt for parish material (see Lincolnshire Online box, page 83). In addition, remember to pay close attention to the spellings and location of the parish that interests you. With more than 600 Lincolnshire parishes, there are several with similar or even identical names – there are for example two Kirtons, several Suttons and two Martins.
Religious angle
Lincolnshire is famously the birthplace of John and Charles Wesley, the founders of the Methodist church. And for all nonconformist sources, make sure you check what is held where. Mike says: “We cover the whole historic county for Church of England and Methodist registers. North East Lincolnshire Archives hold a few registers for other denominations. Neither of us hold Roman Catholic registers – these are at the Diocesan Archives in Nottingham.”
Alongside what might be termed ‘the usual resources’ here, Mike recommends genealogists look into land tax material. “Land tax returns are a good source of names, recording the owners and tenants of property in individual parishes.”
Lincs to the Past also holds a significant probate collection (the main series of wills for Lincoln Consistory Court begin in 1506), a large collection of manorial records, plus Episcopal Rolls and Registers of the diocese of Lincoln.
Other unique sources include records of Christ’s Hospital, which was a charitable institution in Lincoln that homed, educated and apprenticed out poor children from Lincoln, Welton and Potter-han worth between 1602 and 1883. (The records are at LCL/5073-5086A, 3-LCL/3, and WG/6, and the Lincolnshire Family History Society [FHS] has produced an index to admissions 1832–79.)
“We hold some significant collections relating to local engineering firms, including Aveling-Barford of Grantham; Robey; and Ruston & Hornsby, both of Lincoln,” says Mike.
Indeed you can read about the HLF-funded Ruston & Hornsby project at www.lincstothepast.com/exhibitions/archives/ the-ruston-and-hornsby
project/. The Lincoln-based engineering firm specialised in engines and turbines, becoming the largest British builder of aero-engines during the First World War. The £ 98,100 grant has funded the digitisation of thousands of negatives, plus 150 reels of cine film and the recorded memories of former workers.
“The archive also holds smaller collections relating to a range of businesses around the county, from architects to wheelwrights, seed merchants to building merchants, not forgetting the county’s biggest industry – agriculture,” says Mike.
Lincolnshire FHS runs a research centre in Lincoln, and is a driving force behind many important projects and publications that have improved access to genealogical sources here. Many of the society’s transcriptions and indexes can be accessed via Findmypast. One lesser-known project relates to the notes and work of General John Henry Loft, who travelled around Lincolnshire from 1826 to 1844 recording details of the county’s churches. An edition of his notebooks has been produced by the society and is included in this issue’s bonus content – see page 86 (you can view the originals at 1-DIXON/19/1/2-3, FL/MISC/10/1/3 and at Lincoln Central Library).
If you’re new to researching here, make sure you do a little leg work before paying a visit to the area. “The boundary changes make what we hold respectively rather complicated,” says Mike. “The simple version is that North East Lincolnshire Archives holds administrative and public records for the area of the current North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire, together with a range of private and business deposits. However, we still hold a lot of material for their area as it was deposited pre-1974, or relates to larger units (eg Lindsey County Council).”
So, for example, North East Lincolnshire Archives holds admission registers and log books of about 100 schools in North and North East Lincolnshire from 1863 onwards.
The archive, in Grimsby Town Hall, is perhaps best known for its maritime material documenting the fishing industry of Grimsby. Highlights include registers of Grimsby ships (1824– 1988), crew lists and agreements (1864–1914) and registers of fishing apprentices (1879–1937).
North East Lincolnshire Archives looks after records of local cemeteries (including Ainslie Street 1855–1943 and Scartho Road Cemetery from 1889); the Grimsby Poor Law Union and Scartho Road Institution (1890–1930); Brighowgate Children’s Home (1913–58); Grimsby Borough Police and Watch Committee (1846–1966) and more.
You’ll also find electoral registers for Grimsby and part of Cleethorpes, health board material and various court records – quarter and petty sessions, plus coroner’s courts.