Thanks to the efforts of a great team of volunteers led by Australia-based Nick Reddan, the Registry of Deeds Index Project has reached a significant milestone with more than 100,000 entries recorded from 12,243 memorials of deeds. The database can be searched for free here.
'The Registry of Deeds contains an immense amount of data useful for genealogists,' explains Nick. 'While it has often been considered inaccessible, the Registry of Deeds Index Project is gradually, through the contributions of its volunteers, making the records more accessible. There are millions of names in the Registry and the Index Project has only 100,000 and thus has a long way to go. Nevertheless, this is an important milestone for the project.
'Like all indexes the Project Index entries will have some errors. Hopefully, these are minor and do not detract from the substantial progress made in publishing a full name index.'
If you have previously recorded details from a memorial held by the Registry of Deeds, you can contribute it to the Index Project using the official form. There are also other ways of sending information, via excel spreadsheets, for example, and these are outlined on the home page.
The website also holds a thorough guide for those who have not previously looked at the Registry of Deeds in the course of their genealogy research.
Congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard to make these outstanding records freely available.