Suffolk Online
BEST WEBSITES TO AID YOUR RESEARCH
The archives service launched its new website in June 2016 ( suffolkarchives. co.uk). The catalogue is constantly expanding and staff have already uploaded images of wills from West and East Suffolk. Paper catalogues are being added, and there are two special collections of digitised maps and architectural drawings.
There’s also the Friends of Suffolk Record Office ( fosro.org.uk), the Suffolk Archives Foundation ( suffolkarchivesfoundation.org. uk), the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History ( suffolkinstitute.org.uk), Suffolk Local History Council ( slhc.org.uk) and the Suffolk Records Society ( suffolkrecordssociety.com).
The FamilySearch wiki on Suffolk’s church records can be found at familysearch.org/ wiki/en/Suffolk_Church_Records. It lists what is available on Ancestry and Findmypast, plus coverage elsewhere. You can buy copies of parish registers via suffolkarchives.co.uk/ services/parish-register-copying-service.
Findmypast.co.uk has a generous quantity of Suffolk datasets, mainly through partnership with Suffolk Family History Society and the Federation of Family History Societies. These include marriage, baptism and burial indexes, plus electoral registers and a list of freemen of Ipswich. The Suffolk Family History Society website has a Suffolk Parishes page ( suffolkfhs. co.uk/index.php/ information/suffolkparishes) showing a complete A–Z of parishes, and a list of parishes arranged by deanery. You could also try freereg.org.uk.
To search various burial and cemetery indexes provided by the Suffolk Coastal and Waveney Councils, go to bit.ly/scwc-burials.
The Suffolk Medical Biographies site ( suffolk medicalbiographies.co.uk) covers men and women practising medicine in Suffolk from the 11th century until 1900. There’s also Suffolk Churches, with its helpful explanation of the pronunciation of place names ( suffolkchurches. co.uk/pronunciation.htm); Suffolk Mills Group ( suffolkmills.org.uk); the list of Suffolk workhouses at historicalsuffolk.com/suffolkworkhouses.php; and the Woodbridge Nonconformist Church Records site ( woodbridge church.org.uk/Records).