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🏠 FamilySearch Opens a Free Index to the 1921 Census of England and Wales

FamilySearch's October update added more than 138 million records from 26 countries, and the British share is the one that matters here: 5,073,854 indexed entries from the 1921 Census of England and Wales, free to search with a free account. The complete census with its page images remains behind subscription paywalls on Findmypast (where it was first published) and Ancestry, but a free name index is the quickest way to find out which household is worth paying to see. Alongside it came 48,961 entries in the National Index of Wills and Administrations, 1858 to 1957, a first batch of 1,632 British prisoner of war records spanning 1715 to 1947, and small additions to the Cornwall, Derbyshire, Norfolk and Sussex parish and electoral collections. The 1921 census is the last one we will see for a while: the 1931 returns were destroyed in a fire in 1942 and no census was taken in 1941.

🔗 Source: FamilySearch: New Records, October 2026

🍀 Ireland's 1926 Census Gains a Birthplace Filter and a Donegal Clean-Up

The National Archives of Ireland released its October update to the 1926 census database on 8 October. More than 2 million records now carry a standardised county or country of birth, so a search can be filtered by where people were born, which is the question that matters most for anyone tracing movement into and around the Free State in the 1920s. Townland-level birthplaces are not included, because too many of the original entries could not be read with confidence, and records that could not be mapped are marked N/A rather than guessed. The same update corrected a long list of County Donegal transcriptions, added the missing County Dublin 'Form B' house and building returns, and worked through the public corrections submitted up to the end of August. If a Donegal or Dublin search drew a blank in the summer, it is worth running again.

🔗 Source: National Archives of Ireland: Birthplace information added to the 1926 Census database  ·  🔎 Search: Census of Ireland 1926

📜 Poor Law and Parish: a Million Norfolk Entries, Leicestershire Removals, Berkshire Registers

Three releases this month reach the people the censuses miss. MyHeritage's September additions, announced on 6 October, include England, Norfolk Poor Law Union Registers, 1796 to 1900, 1,060,220 records of admissions, discharges, births and deaths in the county's workhouses, together with 7.3 million names extracted from British newspapers. Findmypast's 16 October release is Leicestershire Poor Law Records, 1678 to 1921: 14,626 entries from the removal and settlement order books, about 3,700 bastardy cases with their sentences, and a Leicester Union register of emigrants whose passages were paid by the Poor Law between 1905 and 1921, most of them to Canada. And Ancestry's September roundup brings four new Berkshire Church of England collections, baptisms, marriages, banns and burials from 1538 to 1998, with Suffolk bishops' transcripts (contemporary copies of parish registers), Monmouthshire quarter sessions and Cheshire electoral registers in the same batch. A removal order or a workhouse admission names a family's parish of legal settlement (the home parish responsible for supporting them), and that parish is where the baptism is.

🔗 MyHeritage: 450 million records added in September 2026  ·  🔗 Findmypast: Leicestershire Poor Law Records  ·  🔗 Ancestry: New collections added in September 2026

Most six-generation charts hold at least one man who was of age in 1914, usually a great-grandparent, and his war is the part of his life best documented and least often looked up. Four records do most of the work:

1. Medal Index Card (The National Archives series WO 372, on their website and Ancestry): Almost every man who served overseas has one. It gives his regiment, service number and the campaign medals he was owed, which is the key to everything else.
2. Medal Rolls and Unit War Diaries (WO 329 on Ancestry; WO 95 at The National Archives): The medal rolls often add his battalion, and with a battalion you can read the daily unit war diary to see what his unit was doing on any given day.
3. Service or Pension Record (WO 363 and WO 364, on Ancestry and Findmypast): Most were destroyed by bombing in the Second World War, so finding one is luck, but a surviving file gives his home address, next of kin, height, wounds and postings.
4. Commonwealth War Graves Commission (Find War Dead, free): If he died, the CWGC search gives the date, the cemetery or memorial, and often his parents' names and home address, which is a family history record in its own right.

New this month and worth knowing: Findmypast's 2 October release added two rolls of British medals awarded to foreign-born servicemen, 1914 to 1920, 7,144 and 4,235 records with nationality and rank, for the Belgian, French, Russian and other men who served under British command. On a chart, a war death is recorded the same way as any other: year and place, so 1916, Somme or 1917, Passchendaele sits in the segment where a date and a parish would otherwise go.

🔗 Guide: The National Archives: British Army soldiers of the First World War  ·  🔗 Free search: Commonwealth War Graves Commission: Find War Dead  ·  🔗 New records: Findmypast: Military Medals Awarded to Foreigners by the British Government, 1914 to 1920

🎙️ Scottish Indexes Conference, Saturday 14 November: Free, Online, All Day

The thirty-fourth Scottish Indexes Conference runs on Zoom on Saturday 14 November. Every talk is given twice, once between 7 am and 3 pm UK time and again between 3 pm and 11 pm, so you can drop in for the sessions you want from any time zone. Registration is free, with an optional donation. The programme so far: Researching Urban Ancestors in Scotland (Alison Spring), Landlord and Tenant in Edwardian Dundee (Kay Williams), Tracing Emigrants to Scotland's Forgotten Colony of East New Jersey (Derrick Johnstone), The People of New Lanark (Sophie Hunter) and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors in Kirk Session Records (Emma Maxwell). The full timetable is posted about a week before the day.

🔗 Register: Scottish Indexes Conference XXXIV

🎓 Society of Genealogists in November: Soldiers, War Graves and Scottish Ancestors

Three online talks from the Society's November programme fit the month. Finding Private Clark, 19th Century Soldier with Maggie Gaffney on Saturday 7 November is a worked example of tracing a pre-1914 regular. 20th Century Commonwealth War Graves Commission Burials with Kathy Kirkpatrick on Thursday 19 November explains what the CWGC records hold beyond the headstone. And Researching Your Scottish Ancestors with Dave Annal on Monday 30 November, St Andrew's Day, pairs well with the Scottish Indexes conference above. The In Memoriam season on death, probate and gravestones that began in September continues through the month. Prices and booking are on each event page.

🔗 Programme: Society of Genealogists: events

🏛️ At PRONI in Belfast: Bad Bridget and the Inniskillings in Italy

Two free lunchtime talks at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 1 pm to 2 pm. On Thursday 12 November, Leanne McCormick and Elaine Farrell present Bad Bridget: Ulster Women Behaving Badly in the United States, on the Ulster emigrants who turn up in American court and prison records. On Friday 13 November, Nigel Henderson of History Hub Ulster speaks on The Inniskillings in Italy: the Garigliano River Memorial, two days after Armistice Day.

🔗 Details: PRONI: events

🌐 RootsTech 2027 Registration Is Open: Online Is Free

RootsTech 2027 runs from 4 to 6 March in Salt Lake City and online. The online pass is free, as it has been since 2021, and the recorded sessions stay available afterwards. In-person passes are at early-bird prices until the new year. The Family History Show's next event is also online, on Saturday 6 February 2027; we will remind you in January.

🔗 Register: RootsTech 2027

🎄 A chart for Christmas: order prints by Monday 30 November

A circular chart is a slow gift. Design takes approximately 5 working days after your verified records arrive, you approve a digital proof, and printing and dispatch take 3 to 5 working days after that. For a framed or unframed print delivered to the UK, Ireland or the United States in time for Christmas, order by Monday 30 November. For a digital file, order by Monday 14 December. The last-chance dates, with no margin to spare, are Friday 4 December for the United States, Monday 7 December for the UK and Ireland, and Wednesday 16 December for a digital file delivered by email. The new article walks through the finishes, the timeline and what to send, and explains why a digital file beats the post when time is short.

🔗 Read: Family Tree Gifts for Christmas: What to Order, and the Last Dates  ·  ▶️ Order: Design your chart

🎨 New: three chart designs, each £99 framed

Three new designs built on the six-generation circular chart went up on 17 October, each with a rendered sample and a fixed price:

• The Origins Ring: Adds a narrow outer band coloured by the historic county where each line begins, with a small ship where a line crossed the sea, so a glance at the rim answers where the family came from.
• The Jubilee Chart: Puts a couple at the centre, their ancestors in the rings above, their children and grandchildren in the rings below, and a dedication ribbon at the foot—ideal for a golden or ruby wedding, a special birthday or a family reunion.
• The Cartouche Chart: Fills the four corners of the square frame with decorative information panels drawn from your records, in the manner of eighteenth-century celestial maps: the surnames that recur most, the heartlands, the trades, and the span of the tree.

Each is £99 framed at 16 x 16 inches, £75 as a print only or £55 as a digital file, with any of the heritage motifs, and ordered by enquiry rather than through the builder. The samples show one fictional family, so the three charts tell the same story.

▶️ See the designs: New chart designs, samples and prices

📺 Now on YouTube: a five-minute tour of the studio, and the six motifs in 28 seconds each

The studio's YouTube channel went live in October. The centrepiece is a five-minute film, Six Generations in a Circle: what a six-generation chart holds, the six heritage collections, the three background styles and two connector options, the two layouts, the three new designs, the motifs drawn by commission, the frames, and how an order actually happens. It runs to the studio's own music with the chapters on screen, so it reads just as well with the sound off.

Around it sit eight short clips. Six show a single collection each, the Scottish Thistle, English Tudor Rose, Irish Harp, Irish Shamrock, Celtic Knotwork and Welsh Daffodil, with the motif turning behind a chart so you can see how the colours and the emblem sit together before you choose. A seventh puts all six side by side, and an eighth shows six framed charts rotating in 3D in fifteen seconds. The two-minute chart builder walkthrough is there too. Subscribe if you would like the export guides for Ancestry, MyHeritage and Findmypast when they go up.

▶️ Watch: Six Generations in a Circle (5 min)  ·  📺 Channel: Mark D. Millican on YouTube

📝 How many generations should a chart show?

Six, and the new article explains why: 63 names (you and 62 ancestors) is the most that fits on a wall-sized print with every name readable, and six generations is about as far as most well-researched British and Irish trees reach with civil registration and the censuses alone. It shows how to count your generations from your GEDCOM (the standard family tree file you export from Ancestry, MyHeritage or Findmypast), what to do about the gaps, and when a seven-generation chart stops being a chart and becomes a list.

🔗 Read: How Many Generations Should a Family Tree Chart Show?

🔍 New guide: MyHeritage Smart Matches, are they worth it?

A Smart Match is MyHeritage telling you that someone in your tree also appears in another member's tree: a pointer to another researcher's work, not a record. Used well, it leads you to the cousin who found the baptism you have been chasing for years; used badly, it fills your tree with other people's mistakes. The new article explains how the feature works, how Ancestry, FamilySearch and Findmypast do the same job under other names, where the risks lie, and a method for accepting matches without wrecking your tree. Related, and new on 14 October: MyHeritage DNA users can now record a known relationship with a DNA match, so a confirmed first cousin replaces the estimate and is marked to the maternal or paternal side. It is free to all DNA users, and our January piece on adding DNA matches to your tree will cover it.

🔗 Read: MyHeritage Smart Matches: Are They Worth It?

💻 Updated for late 2026: 16 genealogy programs reviewed and ranked

Three of the main desktop programs released new versions in October—RootsMagic 12, Family Historian 8 and MacFamilyTree 11—so our software review has been expanded from 12 platforms to 16, adding Heredis 2026, Goldie May, KleioBase and Storied. We ran a 1,131-person British and Irish tree through our studio test to see how cleanly each program imports, tidies and exports a GEDCOM. RootsMagic 12 stays at #1 overall (89/100), while UK-built Family Historian 8 climbs from #8 to #2 (86/100) thanks to its 64-bit upgrade, word-processor citation editing and clean exports that don't scramble accents or symbols. One practical finding from the test: spending 30 minutes merging duplicate place names before you export a GEDCOM from Ancestry or MyHeritage saves weeks of work later.

🔗 Read: Genealogy and Family Tree Software: 16 Platforms Reviewed and Ranked (Late 2026 Update)

📚 The directory, re-checked for November

The Genealogy Resources Directory of 519 UK, Irish and worldwide research sites had its monthly automated link check on 1 November, and every listing that moved has been repointed—including Durham Record Office's new archive centre at 'The Story' and the Church of Ireland RCB Library. New subscribers now receive the Excel spreadsheet of the whole directory, with a clickable link for every entry, in their welcome email as soon as they confirm; existing subscribers will find their download link in their emailed copy.

🔗 Browse: Genealogy Resources Directory  ·  📥 Subscriber download: the link to the Excel edition is in your emailed copy of this edition (and on the page you saw when you confirmed your subscription).