Just beginning?
The BBC website has a really useful guide to beginning your family history.
The National Archives website also includes many guides and useful links for genealogists.
Links to these websites are provided on this page.
If you are visiting us, you can talk to members of Shropshire Family History Society at their advice desk on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (10am-1pm). Click on the link for more information about the Society.
If you aren’t able to visit in person, then why not follow the link to our Research Service and commission our researcher to do work for you.
Parish registers
Registers of baptism, marriage and burial for most of the 300 plus Shropshire parishes and some non-conformist and Roman Catholic chapels are held by us and are mostly on microfiche.
A list of our holdings is on this page.
Census returns
We hold microfiche copies of census returns, 1841-1901, for Shropshire. We also subscribe to Ancestry Library Edition so you can search the census returns online on computers here for free.
Birth, marriage and death certificates
We do not hold birth, marriage and death certificates, although we do have an index, 1837-1980, on microfiche. We also have a free subscription to the Ancestry website so you can also search the index from 1837 online.
You can purchase a certificate from the local registrars – follow the links to the copy certificates page for more information.
The Genuki website has a very helpful list of registration districts and shows the parishes in each district.
The system of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began in 1837. Before then you will need to check the parish registers for baptisms, marriages and burials or try using other sources to find references to your ancestors.
Other sources
For guidance on parish registers, school records, pedigrees, newspapers, records of poor relief, records of servants etc visit the sources page.
If you have got beyond the basics and want to use sources such as accounts and taxation records, then it’s well worth buying a copy of our A-Z of family history sources at Shropshire Archives. This is available online from our Shop.
Online information
You can search our online catalogues for names of individuals – you may find them mentioned in property deeds or listed as recipients of poor relief prior to 1834.
My family doesn't come from Shropshire - can you help me?
Although most of the information at Shropshire Archives relates to Shropshire, we do have some material for nearby counties. We also hold some national sources such as the General Register Office index. Our CD Roms include:
- Soliders who died in the Great War, 1914-1919
- Army roll of Honour, World War II, 1939-1945
- Family Search
We also have free access to the Ancestry Library website which contains many national and international databases.