British Newspaper Archives, Obituaries

One of the newest collections to be updated at FamilySearch will be a great source for those searching for ancestors from the British Isles. The collection, British Newspaper Archive, Obituaries covers the 1800 - 1900 time frame. The obituaries included come from a variety of newspapers from all parts of Britain. This amazing database, which at this time includes over 237,000 images was provided to FamilySearch by the British Library in partnership with FindMyPast.
The Gluckstein family, were prominent English Jews and I used them to show how this collection works. I entered the name Gluckstein into the database and 13 results were returned.

From the list above, I selected the first entry, the obituary of Montague Gluckstein. This obituary follows his death in 1922 and was published in the The Evening Telegraph and Post. Below is the extended entry from FamilySearch.

Under the image (located on right side) this record states that in order to see the original document, the user either needs to sign in or visit a local Family History Center. It is well worth it to do so, as the full image will be seen. This obituary is shown below.

This is a very valuable resource and a special thanks goes to the British Library and to FindMyPast.

United Kingdom, World War 1 Service Records, 1914-1920

As this year marks the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of World War 1, a lot of well deserved attention is being given to those who served. This has also led to more and more records becoming available. As part of this, FamilySearch has just added a wonderful new collection, United Kingdom, World War 1 Service Records, 1914-1920.
This collection is a little unique in that even though it has been added to FamilySearch, the custodian of the record, The National Archives in London, has restricted the use of the images to only include the Family History Centers and the main Family History Library in Salt lake City. To locate the closest Family History Center to where you live, visit the link below;

Find a Family History Center 

This collection, which contains the records of W.O.  363 and W.O. 364 contains over 43.5 million images. However, its very important to remember that many of the soldiers had multiple records so the number of people covered is far smaller. The collection is not name search able however it is alphabetical by surname.

The records do provide some very good information on the soldiers. In the case of Jack Gluckstein, there are about 20 pages of documents. Some examples of the type of information in those is shown below.

 

 From his records we now know where he was born, the name of his father, his current address, and his age at enlistment, which when subtracted from the date of enlistment will give us his birth date.

If your ancestry is from the British Isles, this is a very important database for you. If you are attending the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) conference later this month in Salt lake City, who will be able to visit the library and review these documents.