A database of information about 280,000 Scottish archaeological and architecture sites has been updated with some interactive features. I’m glad to learn about it, because I’d never heard of it before. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland has its database, Canmore, available at http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/ .
The front page has a simple keyword search available or you can use an extensive advanced search form that allows you to search by location, site type, ID, online collections only, and more.
I stuck with the simple site search and looked for castle, restricting my results to online items only. I found 1,482 results. Results (it looks like you can get only 500 at a time) are listed 20 to a page, with a thumbnail of the site, site name, site type, council, and collection items. There are two types of collection items: those that are online (those are listed first) and those that are available in the search room (and those may be images, maps, manuscripts, etc. There is information about how to order them but they are not available online.)
Each listing has its own page; here’s the one for Castle Tioram.There are some images available for the site as well as architectural and archaeological descriptions and book citations. Visitors are invited to submit their own sites and images as well.
If you’re less interested in browsing the database and more interested in looking at the images, you might want to check out the RCAHMS Flickr stream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/24880758@N02/. There are 228 images here covering everything from distilleries to castle ruins to rock carvings.
Researchers at the University of Reading and University of Southampton have developed an online database of just under 90,000 service records for soldiers active toward the latter phases of the Hundred Years War (1369-1453). It’s available at http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/search.php. As you might imagine this database is proving fairly popular, so it’s running a bit slowly at the moment.
There’s only one search form but you can search for a variety of data types, including surname, rank, commander, year, and activity. I did a surname search for Archer and got 59 results. Results are provided in a table that includes full name, rank, commander, year, and nature of activity. (I suppose you should be able to sort by any of the data columns but I got an error every time I tried.)
There are references in each listing but I can’t find a key to what the references are for. (This is a pilot database so I’m sure it’s not complete.) It seems like some soliders are listed multiple times for different activities, ranks, etc.
Some folks have understood this database way better than I’ve managed to; the site has a selection of soldier profiles. These biographies use information from the soldier database and elsewhere to provide biographical information on a number of different soldiers, from archers to knights to Barons. These make for interesting if somewhat academic reading.
Bear in mind this information is from the 14th century, so beginning genealogists are not going to have a lot of luck here unless some cousin or ancestor has done a lot of spadework. On the other hand, if you’re interested in English or military history, you’ll find this database very interesting just as a historical document.
York Castle Prison in the UK recently released a database of people who were prisoners there. The database is not comprehensive — it focuses mainly on the 18th century — but information available for each inmate is extensive. The records are at http://www.yorkcastleprison.org.uk/family-history.html. In addition to the prisoner records, the site also includes information on insolvent debtors (mostly from the 18th century) and executions.
The site wants to emphasize this, so I guess I will too — the database is based on original records but the York Castle Prison does not hold any original records, and record images are not available.
The search page of this site suggests that you can search by name or crime, but you can also search by keyword. (If you do search for names, be sure to try several different iterations, as consistent spelling is definitely not the case for these records.) I did a search for innkeeper. Search results are divided into three sections: Executed, Transported (for convict labor), and Debtors. (In this case there were three executed, one transported, and almost three dozen debtors.) The results are listed underneath each tab, with a name, date, and details about the crime/person. Amount of detail seems to vary a lot; you may get that someone was hanged for horse stealing or you might get details about their crimes and even what other family members had been convicted of doing.
As I noted to start with, the prison does not have the original records. Each entry however has some source details, with cryptic notations. Be sure to download the York Prison Factsheet (PDF) for information both on the databases available and the sources used to create the databases. Alas, much of the source data is unavailable online.
