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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Wiltshire => England => Wiltshire Resources & Offers => Topic started by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Monday 27 July 09 11:38 BST (UK)

Title: Info: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Monday 27 July 09 11:38 BST (UK)
Dear all on Rootschat.com

Here in our Swindon Collection we have many resources which may be of interest to some of you with ancestors from Wiltshire.

These include the following:-


The parishes we collect include:

Blunsdon St. Andrew, Broad Blunsdon, Chiseldon, Coate, Hannington, Hinton Parva, Highworth, Inglesham, Liddington, Lydiard Tregoze (Or Tregoz!), Rodbourne Cheney, Sevenhampton, South Marston, Stanton Fitzwarren, Stratton St. Margaret (includes Lower Stratton, Upper Stratton, and Kingsdown), Wanborough, Wroughton.

Our contact details:

Swindon Collection
Local Studies & Family History
Central Library
Regent Circus
Swindon
SN1 1QG

Tel: 01793 463238
Email: localstudies[at]swindon.gov.uk
Our main web site (http://www.swindon.gov.uk/swindoncollection)

New! Please take a look at our web 2.0 links:-
Follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/SwindonLocal)
Subscribe to our online gallery of local historical images, photographs and pictures on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/)


All comments, compliments and complaints gratefully received.
Very best wishes, and good luck in your research!

Swindon Central Library
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Sunday 13 September 09 16:29 BST (UK)
Dear all on Rootschat.com,

Just an update to say that our free online gallery now has almost 800 images with 1000s more to come.
We are indexing all names, surnames, years, street/road names, etc, to maximise its usefulness for genealogists.

Link here: www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/sets/

Good luck in your research,
Please contact us if you have any questions:

Swindon Collection (Local Studies and Family History)
Central Library,
Regent Circus
Swindon
SN1 1QG

T: (01793) 463238
E: localstudies[at]swindon.gov.uk
W: www.swindon.gov.uk/swindoncollection
TW: https://twitter.com/SwindonLocal
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Warwick122 on Friday 06 November 09 17:24 GMT (UK)
Does anyone know where the red light district was in Swindon around 1875 to 1900?  I think my great grandfather's first wife may have run an establishment but don't know how to verify my suspicion.

Helen
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: LizzieW on Saturday 07 November 09 00:34 GMT (UK)
I don't know about 1875-1900, but when I lived in the Swindon area from 1990 onwards it was Manchester Road - where the council had very helpfully put speed bumps, to slow down the kerb crawlers maybe ;D ::) ???

Lizzie
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: joboy on Saturday 07 November 09 06:46 GMT (UK)
Thank you  swindonlocal ....  have looked at the links and images and think they are most useful and informative.
Do you have records of Swindon families who emigrated to Australia in the mid 1850's?
joboy
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Monday 09 November 09 12:28 GMT (UK)
Thank you  swindonlocal ....  have looked at the links and images and think they are most useful and informative.
Do you have records of Swindon families who emigrated to Australia in the mid 1850's?
joboy

So glad you like the gallery. We have now got over 1200 images and have had 75,000 hits. Much more to come.

The records you ask about are not going to be in Wiltshire - you need to look at passenger lists which are avaible on Ancestry. If you are in or near Swindon, we provide FREE access to Ancestry Library Edition on all of our public computers.

Otherwise you will need to contact the National Archives.

Best of luck!
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Monday 09 November 09 12:32 GMT (UK)
Does anyone know where the red light district was in Swindon around 1875 to 1900?  I think my great grandfather's first wife may have run an establishment but don't know how to verify my suspicion.

Helen

It is a difficult area to verify.
Early court cases may give clues, and the local press may cover trials of 'houses of ill repute'.

We think the Red Light area, such as it was in that period, was located near the train station, behind the Great Western Hotel etc. This was the very end of Manchester Road and the nearby streets.
But between 1875 and 1900, New Swindon was changing from a fairly wild place (the previous 30 years were notorious!). There may have been all kinds of establishments.
Contemporary accounts (like Snell's) paint a very vivid picture of New Swindon as a kind of Wild West!
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: GrahamGirl on Monday 30 November 09 13:50 GMT (UK)
Do you know where I can find records online of a divorce that would have happened approx 1913-1915 in Swindon?
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: LizzieW on Monday 30 November 09 14:17 GMT (UK)
Hello GrahamGirl

I was going to suggest you searched on National Archives, but having gone to their website myself, it states that they only holds records of divorces in the Supreme Court. For records from local courts, you will need to contact the Principal Registry of the Family Division who will search them for a fee.

Principal Registry of the Family Division
First Avenue House
42-49 High Holborn
London, WC1V 6NP
Telephone number: +44 (0) 20 7947 6000

Lizzie
 
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: GrahamGirl on Tuesday 01 December 09 11:49 GMT (UK)
Thanks Lizzie!  I don't know for sure if the great grandparents did formally divorce or just separate, but one of them went onto marry again.
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: karen13 on Thursday 11 February 10 16:01 GMT (UK)
Do you know of any courses that run in Swindon that teaches you genealogy - where to look, how to search records etc?
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Monday 24 January 11 11:36 GMT (UK)
Dear Karen13,
I am so sorry - not sure how we missed this - we do try to ttrack any posts for us ASAP.
Did you ever track down any courses?
We run courses ourselves for the public. Are you in the Swindon area?
If you are still interested, email us at localstudies@swindon.gov.uk
We can add you to our waiting list and see if we can help you out.

Best wishes,
Swindon Collection, Central Library
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Tuesday 25 January 11 16:58 GMT (UK)
Dear Karen - we have now received your email and will reply to you via that.
Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Tuesday 02 August 11 17:15 BST (UK)
Just an update to say that our online Flickr gallery of historical images from Swindon and the surrounding part of Wiltshire has now had over a Million views and we are just about to add our 5,000th photograph.

Don't forget: it is all name, date, street and keyword searchable so can be very useful for genealogical research in the area!

Many thanks to those of you from this forum who have been in touch with us since we first posted here. Always a pleasure!


Title: Re: Swindon Local Studies & Family History Collection (Central Library)
Post by: Local Studies, Swindon Libraries on Wednesday 29 August 12 15:18 BST (UK)
Hello!,
It has been over a year since we updated this thread - just to say that, with 7600+ images now online, we are fast approaching 3 Million views on our Swindon history gallery.

Don't forget that we have very carefully tagged the images so you can search by surname, year, street, area, etc. Thanks again to the many, many people who have been in touch with extra information, helped us ID places and people in the pics, date them or contributed their own images.

And remember that we are here to help with any research enquiries relating to the Swindon Borough area:-

Swindon Collection
Central Library
Regent Circus
Swindon SN1 1QG

localstudies@swindon.gov.uk
(01793)463238
www.swindon.gov.uk/swindoncollection (http://www.swindon.gov.uk/swindoncollection)