Family History
START YOUR FAMILY HISTORY JOURNEY AT TUTBURY MUSEUM.
Put off by the cost of a subscription to Ancestry or Findmypast? Struggling to get to grips with their on-line search mechanisms? Up against a brickwalll in tracing your ancestors?
We can help you!
Our Volunteers can usually help you with free access to the Findmypast or Ancestry family history databases,, as well as to the Museum’s extensive records of Tutbury and the surrounding area. Search Censuses; Parish Registers; Birth, Marriage, Death registrations; and many local records.
The Museum is also offering free one-to-one introductory tuition sessions to anyone interested in taking the first steps into researching their family history. Benefit from the expertise of our Volunteers, several of whom are experienced researchers and can help you navigate through the many resources available to discover your ancestors.
Call Chris Tipper on 01455 823348 or email tutburymuseum@gmail.com to reserve a place.
Records we have available
Meticulous transcriptions of a wide variety of village records and documents by Museum Curator, Bob Minchin and his wife Jeanne, provide a rich source of information for anyone with family connections in the village and surrounding area.
These include:-
- Parish baptisms, marriages and burials at St. Mary’s Church from 1668 to 1965;
- Censuses from 1841 to 1921;
- Work is continuing on Census data for adjacent Villages – please ask if we have anything.
- A mapping of all graves in the extensive, but often overgrown, churchyard;
- 1539 Muster Rolls;
- 1665 Hearth Tax Assessments;
- 1764/5 Land Tax Returns;
- Church Rates 1810-12;
- Congregational church records;
- 19th century Tithe Surveys;
- Property deeds;
- Apprenticeship records;
- Records of the recipients of aid from the Richard Wakefield Charity;
- Membership Registers of the local Oddfellows Lodge;
- Commercial Directories from the early 1800s up to 1960;
- Electoral Rolls;
- Glassmakers Union Records 1866-1902.
Our comprehensive indexing system has in excess of 75,000 different references. These cover approximately 2,500 family names from Abberley through to Young, and Christian names from Aaron to Zemorah, Zillah and Zuradah. For the larger families of long-standing in the village, you will find several hundred references each. We have something like 140,000 names on our master list.
Some of the less common records can certainly help add some “colour” to the bare statistics of birth, marriage and death dates that often appear to be the only traces of their life that many of our ancestors left behind them.
The opportunity to pinpoint the exact location of one’s ancestors’ homes through street maps, directories and our extensive collection of old photographs can also be rewarding.
If you are visiting us for family history research, we suggest that where possible you contact us in advance of your visit, so that we can try and ensure that one of our volunteers with specific expertise in searching the records can be on hand to help you.
If you live too far away to pay us a visit, we are very happy to respond to enquiries by email or letter. We do not normally make any charge for fielding information requests – indeed, it is often the case that we add as much to Museum’s information base from what enquirers are able to tell us, as we are able to provide in return. If you would like us to carry out more extensive research on your behalf, a modest donation to the Museum’s funds would be appreciated.
Much of our data is also available to purchase in CD format.