New Records Available To Search This Findmypast Friday
This week’s Findmypast Friday marks the release of British Army Muster Rolls, as well as a host of updates to the PERiodical Source Index. We also have some incredible new records detailing the inmates of Australian mental health institutions, including information on their length of stay and ailments, and a fascinating collection of wills and probate documents from Lichfield and Coventry, spanning over 300 years.
British Army Muster Rolls, 84th Foot 1808-1818
Each transcript will vary due to the individual career of each soldier, but may include the soldier’s name, rank, regiment, battalion, and militia recruit. You can follow their career to find out whether they took part in the Walcheren Campaign or the Peninsular War, or if he served as a guard on a convict ship in New South Wales. These records will also reveal whether your ancestor was admitted to hospital, and if so, which one. They will show if your ancestor was taken as a prisoner of war or died in service, along with the date and cause of death. Some transcripts include additional information from the pension records.
British Army Muster Rolls, 60th Foot 1879-1882
The 60th Regiment was first raised in the American colonies in 1756 and was known as the Royal Americans. Their name was changed to the King’s Royal Rifle Corps after the Napoleonic Wars in 1830. The muster rolls cover the Zulu War, 1st Boer War and the Battle of Tel El-Kebir. The regiment is also known as the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.
Each record includes a transcript created from the information found in the original muster rolls. The details included will vary depending on the military career of each solider, however you may find a combination of the soldier’s name, service number, rank, regiment, battalion, mounted infantry, the 1879 Zulu muster roll, 1881 1st Boer War muster roll, or 1882 Tel El Kebir muster roll. Additional notes may include the date the individual was enlisted, sickness, if wounded and when, date of discharge or date and cause of death.
Victoria, Mental Health Institutions
This record set includes eleven institutions, covering admission years from 1811-1919, and discharge dates from 1838-1914. This amazing collection could help you to discover the dates of your ancestor’s stay and what ailed them. You may also learn the names and residences of their next of kin and their medical histories. The images are particularly interesting, as they include additional fields, such as medical histories. Images may reveal your ancestor’s condition of life and previous occupation, previous home, the authority by which they were sent there, dates of medical certificates and by whom signed, details of a patient’s mental and/or physical condition and ailments, their medical history, and additional observations.
These records also include notable individuals, such as Edward/Ellen De Lacy Evans, a woman who spent 20 years living as a man before being discovered, and Harry Trott, a skilled cricketer who was admitted to Kew Asylum in 1899 after suffering fits and bouts of unconsciousness.
Staffordshire Dioceses of Lichfield & Coventry wills and probate 1521-1858
This record set is comprised of two collections, Diocese of Lichfield & Coventry Probate Court Act Books 1532-1638, and Diocese of Lichfield & Coventry original wills, inventories and letters of administration 1521-1858.
Most transcripts include first and last names, death date, year of will, year of grant of probate or letters of administration, occupation, parish, and more. Individuals often have multiple images of the original documents containing details of their probate and their wills written out in full, which can provide detailed information on next of kin and the estate of the deceased. Wills and letters of administration (where a will was not made) will often include references to entire family networks. Inventories of property survive for almost all wills up to 1750.
35 different publications have either been newly added to the collection or updated with additional coverage. Included are a range of research sources like newsletters, journals, magazines and genealogy quarterlies. You’ll find fully searchable new articles from states, cities and towns across America. But PERSI is so much more than a great source for tracing American relatives. The latest additions include indexes on English, Irish, Australian and Swedish genealogy too.