Family Records Centre Greater London hotels:

This site, provided by the FamilyRecords.gov.uk consortium, aims to help you find the government records and other sources you need for your family history research. The site is divided into two main sections: Topics and Partners. In the topics section you will find information on Births, Marriages & Deaths, Census, Migration etc. In the partners section, you will find information on each member of the FamilyRecords.gov.uk consortium. For many people, tracing their family history will lead them to an ancestor who was born abroad but came to live in the United Kingdom. Over the last 600 years, many foreigners have come and made their home in the UK. Some have been victims of persecution in their homelands, others have come in search of a new life. There are both digital and physical immigration records that can be viewed. There have been several waves of emigration from the United Kingdom. People might have been fleeing religious persecution, seeking a better life or have been transported against their will. Emigration to the Americas started in 1585, but the first successful settlement was established at Jamestown in 1607. In 1620 the "Mayflower" arrived from Plymouth carrying, amongst others, Puritan refugees. Thousands of emigrants went to work on the tobacco plantations of Virginia. Emigrants were granted 50 acres of land, but the land went to whoever paid the fair, so most traveled as indentured servants of plantation owners who were able to claim their servants' land. Scots started to emigrate in large numbers from 1710, three years after the Act of Union. In the 17th and 18th centuries, men, women and children from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were sentenced to transportation.
Sentences were usually for 7 or 14 years, but many never returned to their homeland. Millions of people from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland continued to emigrate to the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries until US immigration controls were tightened in 1918.