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Date updated: 15/02/2022

Ancestors from the London area

We are an essential destination for anyone researching ancestors from the London area. We hold over 100km of archives so there is a good chance that your ancestor may appear in our records in one form or another.

Our holdings include some of the most important family history sources for London, including:

  • parish registers
  • electoral registers
  • land tax records
  • parish poor relief and boards of guardians registers, which include workhouse records

Our research guide Family History at LMA provides advice on our holdings and how to research your family history with us.

View You Tube film on researching family history at the LMA.

Open the LMA Family History Research Guide

Family History online

The archive collections are listed on our Collections catalogue. The catalogue provides descriptions of the vast majority of our collections and all of the main sources for family history are included. Keep in mind that these are only descriptions of the records.

Digitised records on Ancestry

Over 20 million parish records from our collections, fully searchable by each individuals name, are now available on the Ancestry website.

You can access the records from anywhere in world by taking out an Ancestry subscription package or you can use them for free when you visit us

Please note: birth, marriage and death certificates can be ordered online from the General Register Office. LMA does not hold any certificates or indexes.

Need help?

We run free introductory sessions every month to help get your family history research under way! 

  • Use LMA - introduction and tour of the LMA public areas to find out where to start 
  • Family History Starter Session - learn how to get the most out of the digitised family history resources, including ancestry, available at LMA

Check our Eventbrite feed to see the next available sessions.

View You Tube video about the LMA.

Check LMA events on Eventbrite