Transcribed from primary sources

Historical English Records,
Searchable Online

Trade directories, memorial inscriptions, parish registers and burial records — carefully transcribed and available to search online from £2.50.

A growing archive of transcribed historical records from across England.

  • Trade directory

    Liverpool Directory 1766

    • Lancashire
    • 1766
    • 1,079 entries

    An alphabetical directory of merchants, tradesmen and principal inhabitants of Liverpool — pre-industrial Georgian Lancashire at the height of the Atlantic trade era.

  • Memorial inscriptions

    Hastings All Saints MI

    • Sussex
    • c.1896
    • 691 entries

    A detailed transcription of memorial inscriptions from All Saints Church, Hastings — compiled by Alfred Ridley Bax. Includes monument type, epitaph text and family relationships.

  • Trade directory

    Wolverhampton Directory 1780

    • Staffordshire
    • 1780
    • 1,000+ entries

    From The Merchant's and Tradesman's Useful Companion — a comprehensive directory of Wolverhampton at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, including metalworkers, japanners and buckle makers.

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How it works

Each collection on OldDocs has been transcribed by hand from original primary sources — old books, directories and registers, most published before 1900 and now out of copyright.

You can browse the full catalogue and read a sample of each collection for free. To search the complete records, access individual collections from £2.50 or the full archive for £9.99 — a one-off payment with no subscription and no expiry.

Access is permanent and online — no downloads, no PDFs to lose. Records are searchable by name so you can find ancestors quickly.

About the transcriptions