How to research your family history at Southampton Archives

Southampton Archives holds a range of family history resources which you can use to trace the history of your family in Southampton, including records of baptisms, marriages and burials, street directories, electoral registers, Merchant Navy index cards, and photographs.

Before contacting us, the best place to start is by talking to your immediate family to find out what information they have and then working backwards. Ask your living relatives about their parents, grandparents, and other relatives.

You may also be able to find documents and certificates that are already in the family, such as birth, marriage, and death certificates. Family photographs and memorabilia are also good sources of information.

Remember to take notes and keep clear records, as this will help you keep track of the research you have done so far. Once you have got as far as you can by talking to family, we recommend contacting us at Southampton Archives, where you will be able to get more information on your family in Southampton.

Baptism, marriage and burial indexes SHOW

Our reading room has alphabetical indexes of people baptised, married, and buried in Southampton from 1837 onwards. The information on the index slips was taken from parish records for Church of England parishes within the boundaries of the town (and later city). The index slips are useful for tracing your family member’s life in Southampton because they show if they were born and baptised in the area, married another resident, and if they were living locally when they died.

Index trays for baptisms, marriages, and burials, organised alphabetically according to surname. The indexes are available to browse in our reading room.

Baptisms - Baptism index slips give the name of the child being baptised, their parents’ names, the date the baptism took place, the parish in which it took place, the address the family lived at, and the father’s profession
Marriages - Marriage index slips give the names of the bride and groom, where they were living at the time of their marriage, the names of their parents, the profession of the groom, when and where the marriage took place, and the names of any witnesses
Burials - Burial index slips give the deceased’s name, date of death, where they were living at the time of their death, their age, and the parish they were buried in. The below slip gives details of the burial of Isabella Henrietta Minet, who was buried in the parish of St James, Shirley, in 1908

Example of a burial slip

The indexing of parish records is an ongoing project, so if you cannot find the name of a family member among the index slips, it may mean that their details haven’t been transcribed yet. In that case, your next step would be to consult the original parish records.

Parish records SHOW

The information on the index slips for baptisms, marriages and burials was taken from parish records held in our storage rooms. These are also available for the public to view, though if you have found your ancestor’s details on an index slip, they will not provide any additional information. Below is Isabella Henrietta Minet’s entry in the original parish register for St James, Shirley.

Parish records book

Microfiche copies of parish records are also available in our reading room.

Cemetery records SHOW

If you are searching for a family member who was buried in a cemetery rather than a churchyard, we also hold some records of burials in the following cemeteries:

Southampton Old Cemetery: 1846-1959
South Stoneham Cemetery: 1905-1937
Millbrook Cemetery: 1909-1954
Holybrook Cemetery: 1913-1959 (registers of burial services)
Crematorium: 1932-1973

Photographs SHOW

If your ancestor was a notable local figure or was involved in a local event, then we may have some photographs of them. We have indexes of photos in our reading room organised according to people, places, and subjects related to Southampton, as well as some photos of the wider Hampshire area.

Street directories SHOW

Street directories are a useful way of finding out where an ancestor lived, as they contain lists of Southampton residents and the properties they lived at, provided they were the head of household. We hold directories published by Kelly’s, the Post Office, and other firms, dating from 1803-1975, with some gaps.

Page from the 1887 Kelly’s street directory, showing residents living at Mount Pleasant, Peel Street, Pembroke Square, and Peto Street.

Street directories also include commercial indexes and trade directories, so if your family member owned a business or worked in a particular trade, then their business and place of work may be listed in the directory.

There are also directories available at the Local Studies and Maritime Library at Southampton Central Library, and a selection are available as part of the Local History and Maritime Digital Archive on the council website.

Electoral registers SHOW

Electoral records are useful if you are looking for more information on who lived with a family member at their property, as they show not just the head of household but anyone who was registered to vote. They are organised according to electoral ward, meaning that you will need to know which ward your house would have been in at the time in order to use them effectively. If you cannot find your house in the register, it may be because the occupiers were not registered to vote, or because the area your house is in wasn’t part of Southampton at the time.

We hold electoral registers for the periods 1832-1918 and 1930 to the present. Information can be limited in the case of the earlier registers, which were produced before universal suffrage was introduced.

Burgess lists (1835-1915), which were used for local elections, are a useful way of filling the gaps in the early registers, as they list properties and their owners, meaning that women are included if they owned property in the town.

Census records SHOW

Population censuses have been taken at ten-yearly intervals since 1841 and are a valuable way of tracing family members as they give the address the person was living at, their profession (if they had one) and the names of any spouses or children they had.

The best place to go to browse census records is the Local Studies and Maritime Library at Southampton Central Library. Local Studies holds all the census returns for the Southampton area, as well as street and name indexes for most years. The library also provides free online computer access to the UK census via the Ancestry and Find My Past websites. To use the library computers, please bring a library card and pin number. If you do not have one, then please bring a form of identification with your name and address on it, and library staff will be happy to register you for a library card.

Merchant Navy records SHOW

Southampton Archives hold a wealth of Merchant Navy and shipping records you can use to trace your Merchant Navy ancestor.

Our biggest collection is the Central Index Register of Merchant Seamen, which covers British merchant naval personnel serving during the period 1918-1941. The records in the index contain sailors’ names, dates, and places of birth, and ranks or jobs onboard a ship. They often include details of previous ships sailors’ served on and for some records photos of the sailors.

We also hold crew lists and log books dating from 1863-1913. Crew lists give information on crew members who served on ships, including the date and place they signed on, their wages, and what their role on board the ship was. They also include the previous ship each crew member served on, enabling you to trace their career backwards through the lists.

If your ancestor served in the Merchant Navy, then we may hold individual and crew list records for them. You are welcome to pay us a visit to view said record in person, or we are happy to provide a paid research service on your behalf.

For more information on our Merchant Navy records, please see the guide to Merchant Navy records.