Family History in London

Research Guide

1. About this guide

This guide will help you find records to research your family history in London. Our collections include some of the most important family history sources for London, including parish registers, electoral registers, land tax records, parish poor relief and Boards of Guardians records. Many of these records have their own dedicated research guide, but this guide provides an overview of the family history records we hold.

2. Records available on Ancestry

We are currently working in partnership with Ancestry to digitise our most important family history sources so they can be accessed online anywhere in the world. Ancestry requires a subscription but is free to access onsite. The datasets of our material on Ancestry include:

London and Surrey, England, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1597-1921
London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812
London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1924
London, England, Church of England Confirmation Records, 1838-1923
London, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-2003
London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940
London, England, City Directories, 1736-1943
London, England, City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery Registers, 1841-1966
London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1972
London, England, Freedom of the City Admission Papers, 1681-1930
London, England, Gamekeepers' Licences, 1727-1839
London, England, Land Tax Records, 1692-1932
London, England, Non-conformist Registers, 1694-1931
London, England, Overseer Returns, 1863-1894
London, England, Poor Law and Board of Guardian Records, 1738-1926
London, England, Poor Law Hospital Admissions and Discharges, 1842-1918
London, England, Poor Law School District Registers, 1852-1918
London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1840-1911
London, England, School Admissions and Discharges, 1912-1918
London, England, Selected Poor Law Removal and Settlement Records, 1698-1922
London, England, Selected Rate Books, 1684-1907
London, England, Stock Exchange Membership Applications, 1802-1924
London, England, TS Exmouth Training Ship Records, 1876-1918
London, England, Wills and Probate, 1507-1858
London, England, Workhouse Admission and Discharge Records, 1764-1921
Middlesex, England, Convict Transportation Contracts, 1682-1787
UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893

The titles of these datasets can be copied and searched for on the Card Catalogue page on Ancestry.

It is important to note that some datasets may have gaps where records have not survived. For records beyond the dates of these datasets, you will need to visit us. In some cases, records may be closed to the public to comply with data protection legislation.

3. Other online sources

Some of our records and indexes to our records are also digitised on other free online resources including:

British History Online

British History Online is a digital archive of nearly 1300 volumes of primary and secondary content relating to British and Irish history and is free to access. Indexes and calendars to some of our records include:

London Lives, 1690-1800

London Lives makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, including City, Middlesex and Westminster sessions, City and Southwark coroners’ inquests, and a variety of parish records.

London Picture Archive

The London Picture Archive is our free image library, and it provides online access to over 250,000 images of London from the collections at The London Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey

The Old Bailey Proceedings Online makes available a fully searchable, digitised collection of all surviving editions of the Old Bailey Proceedings from 1674 to 1913. (Please note that we have the original records of the City, Middlesex and Westminster Sessions in our collection, which may be less detailed than the proceedings.)

We also have subscriptions to collections by Adam Matthews and Gale including:

Trade in Early Modern London: Livery Company Records, 1450-1750

The Trades in Early Modern London: Livery Company Records dataset includes constitutional records, court records and wardens’ accounts from six of the livery companies of London including: the Drapers’, Fishmongers’, Goldsmiths’, Merchant Taylors’ , Skinners’ and Vintners’ Companies. (Please note that all livery company records can only be consulted at Guildhall Library).

Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life, 1500-1700

The Early Modern England: Society, Culture & Everyday Life dataset contains digitised records from the Middlesex Sessions of the Peace, City of London Sessions, Court of Judicature and the Wood Family papers.

Women’s Studies Archive

The Women's Studies Archive covers large parts of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries, and contains material focusing on the social, political, and professional aspects of women’s lives, including convict nominal registers from Holloway Prison.

TLA also has a subscription to the British Newspaper Archive and Find My Past which can be accessed via the terminals in the Information Area.

4. Records not available online

Not all our family history records have been digitised. London Generations is the name of the collection of our main family history sources, and the London Generation binders in our Information Area will indicate whether a document is on Ancestry, or in another format such as microfilm. They are arranged by London Borough.

Whilst London Generations comprises some of our most popular family history archives it is just the starting point. Our vast collection includes many other records that may be of interest to you. These include:

Fire insurance records, including the Sun Fire Office (reference code CLC/B192/F)
Bluecoat schools records, including Christ’s Hospital (reference code CLA/067)
Hospital records, including Guy's (reference code H09/GY) and St. Thomas' (reference code H01) as well as the former county lunatic asylums of Hanwell (reference code H11/HLL), Colney Hatch (reference code H12/CH) and Banstead (reference code H22/BAN)
Lloyd's of London captains' registers
Prison records, including Holloway Prison (reference code CLA/003) and Wandsworth Prison (reference code ACC/3444)
Court records, including magistrates’ courts
Photographs and prints from every London Borough
Maps and plans, including parish maps and bomb damage maps

Further material from our collections useful to family historians is held at Guildhall Library. Collections relevant to family history include:

City of London Livery Company archives
Lloyd's of London archives (excluding the Captains Registers, which are at TLA)
The Stock Exchange archives and printed collections

5. Records held elsewhere

Civil Registration records

Records of births, marriages and deaths have been officially registered since 1837. You can access indexes to civil registrations via websites such as Ancestry and FreeBMD which provide the district, volume and page number of each civil registration. Once you have obtained this information, you can order certificates on the General Register Office website.

The General Register Office can be contacted by post at Certificate Services Section, General Register Office, PO Box 2, Southport, Merseyside PR8 2JD or by telephone on 0300 123 1837.

TLA cannot issue certificates or provide any further details than those included on the indexes on Ancestry or FreeBMD.

Census records

We do not hold any original census returns, however you can view census records from 1841 to 1921, and the 1939 register on Ancestry and Find My Past. Original census records are held by The National Archives.

There are no comprehensive census returns that survive centrally before 1841, however a few local census returns dating from 1801 to 1831 can be found amongst parish records, but they may not give the names of all the members of a household.

We have census returns for parishes including:

Christ Church, Southwark 1811 (reference code P92/CTC)
St Saviour, Southwark 1811 (reference code P92/SAV)
Holy Trinity, Clapham 1801-1821 (reference code P95/TRI1)
St Andrew, Enfield 1801 (reference code DRO/004)
St Mary, Harrow 1831 (reference code DRO/003)

Other census returns may survive in local London Borough archives.

6. Family history workshop

Once a month we have a Focus on Family History workshop, a beginner session on Family History. The session covers digital resources available at The London Archives, including birth marriage and death indexes, the census and parish records. Focus on Family History can be booked on our Eventbrite page.

7. Further reading

We have a large number of books in our reference library that can provide help to start your family history including:

Ancestral Trails: The Complete Guide to British Genealogy and Family History by Mark Herber - library shelfmark 61.2 HER
My Ancestors Were Londoners : how can I find out more about them? by Cliff Webb - library shelfmark 61.2 WEB