Family history website Ancestry has said it will add a major new collection of nearly 5.8 million records from Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire.
The website has published 2,731,356 1538-1812 baptism, marriage and burial records; 1,091,738 1754-1940 banns and marriage records; and 413,911 1813-1996 burial records. A set of 1,544,406 1813-1924 baptism records will be added in the near future. The records are taken from Cambridgeshire Libraries and Archives and also cover the historical county of Huntingdonshire.
Before the introduction of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths, religious baptism, marriage and burial records are the main way to trace key events in our ancestors’ lives. The new collection marks a major step forward for tracing Cambridgeshire ancestry online. The records include the baptism record of Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector of Britain from 1653 to 1658. The record shows that he was born on 25 April 1599 and baptised four days later at the church of St John’s, Huntingdon. His parents were Robert and Elizabeth Cromwell.