London Metropolitan Police database - www.policeorders.co.uk

If you had relatives who served in London’s Metropolitan Police Service this is a useful site. The records started on the formation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 with well over 500,000 entries up until 1945. These records do not include the City of London Police or British Transport police.

What the database does hold are records of officers joining or leaving the force, transfers, death or pensioned from service and the issue of medals from the Metropolitan Police. You can also see the Divisions with names of the police stations as well as a chronological list of all the Police Commissioners and Home Secretaries from 1829 to the present.

There is also a useful photo section showing the epaulettes showing the badges of rank (useful if researching photographs of police uniforms)

This is an ideal source of information for the genealogist/family historian who had family members who served in the Metropolitan Police Force. These records can be sourced at the National Archives.

A search can also be undertaken by http://www.policeorders.co.uk/ for a small charge by emailing your details to searches@policeorders.co.uk

Mike
Family Tree Folk
http://www.familytreefolk.co.uk/

FreeBMD – Useful Search Tip

Many of you probably use FreeBMD for searching for family registrations for births, marriages and deaths but here is a little know useful “extra” tip to use in your research.

Select All Types then enter a + sign and the SURNAME in the First Name field and leave the surname blank.

You will then get a list of registrations where the surname has been used as a middle name or on occasion the first name. It does work better with the more unusual surnames.

Example:

One name I research is Scoltock. If I select All Types, enter +Scoltock in the First name field and leave the surname blank I get 10 instances where the Scoltock name has been used as a middle name 3 births, 3 marriages and 4 deaths.

This can be extremely revealing when piecing together your family tree.

So try it yourself using my example above then any of the surnames you are researching and see what you come up with.

Also remember to store your certificates in acid free pockets see http://www.familytreefolk.co.uk/page_11048.html

Good Hunting!

FreeBMD website http://www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl

Mike

Family Tree Folk