Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Trio of Gazettes brought together in free online service

The Gazettes: Three into one
The UK National Archives has relaunched its online databases of The London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes by bringing them together in one fully searchable, free site.

The Gazette is the official journal of the United Kingdom, Scotland and Northern Ireland and, although often overlooked as a family history resource, it is a treasure trove of 350 years' worth of trusted information for genealogists.

The London Gazette dates back to 1665, the Edinburgh Gazette to 1699 (to 1793 as a continuous publication) and the Belfast Gazette to 1921.

The London Gazette in particular should not be overlooked as a potential source of Irish family history; it holds a lot of information about Irish men and women in its announcements of civil service examination successes and appointment listings, insolvencies, probate, legalised name changes, mentions in war despatches and military honours etc.

From today, the three publications have been integrated into a single online and print service at www.thegazette.co.uk. You an learn more about the new beta service in the video below.

The archives of the Dublin Gazette, which was replaced by Iris Oifigiúil in 1922, are available on microfilm (18th century) or hard copy at the National Library, but are not online.

There's more about free-to-access Irish newspaper archives in my free Toolkit.