Tracing your Warwickshire ancestors

This page lists other local record offices, publications and website which may be useful to your family history research.

Other local record offices

• The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Records Office, Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6QW (01789) 204016, holds most of the town’s records as well as a number of important estate and solicitors’ collections containing records from many parts of central and south Warwickshire.
• Coventry History Centre, Jordan Well, Coventry CV1 5QP, (024) 7683 4060 holds Coventry’s archive collections, although Warwickshire County Record Office hold the Coventry parish registers.
• Birmingham Archives and Heritage Service, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham B3 3HQ (0121) 242 4242 holds Birmingham records and parish registers as well as a number of collections relating to Warwickshire.
• Worcestershire Archive & Archaeology Service, The Hive, Sawmill Walk, The Butts, Worcester, WR1 3PB, telephone: (01905) 822866, email:archive@worcestershire.gov.uk
• Staffordshire Record Office, The Friary, Lichfield WS13 6QG (01543) 510720 hold wills of Warwickshire people before 1858, as well as Bishops’ Transcripts of parish registers and Marriage Bonds and Allegations.

Useful books

Parish registers, Nonconformist registers and census returns in the Warwickshire County Record Office. This booklet is no longer available to buy in hard copy, however you can access the information in this booklet on our website.

• Church of England parish registers and census returns
• Nonconformist church registers.

Tracing Your Ancestors in Warwickshire (excluding Birmingham). By June Watkins and Pauline Saul. Published by Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry, 361 pages £9.00.

Beginning your Family History. By George Pelling. Published by the Federation of Family History Societies, 88 pages £4.50.

Useful links

Here are some useful websites to help get your research started:

• A catalogue of national collections: Visit the Access to Archives website.
• Censuses, births, marriages and deaths, and much more. Ancestry now includes Warwickshire’s parish records. You can access Ancestry Library Edition for free when you visit the record office or a Warwickshire Library. Visit Ancestry.co.uk.
• Over 250,000 family history websites can be found on Cyndi’s List.
• Find a database of parish register entries on Family Search.
• Free partial General Register Office index from Free BMD.
• For a comprehensive guide to UK family history resources visit GENUKI.
• Research the history of a surname and those who have held it on The Guild of One Name Studies.
• Search for details of Warwickshire local and family history societies on the SearchOut Warwickshire.