Ancestry: The UK-Wales death index

Ancestry.co.uk posted a very low key release of an important dataset, according to our good friend Laurence Harris, "our man" in London.

He reported that there's now a full name searchable death index for all deaths in England and Wales for 1916-2005.

Instead of having to search for a name visually on multiple images of the GRO index pages for each quarter year, readers can now do an easy name search in one-shot for 1915-2005. Another great boon is that wildcards and non-exact (variant) spellings are allowed.

This is sure to be a great tool for everyone searching the death of an ancestor in England.

Laurence easily found entries for the deaths of both of his great-grandparents (KLONOWSKI) in the record time of 20 seconds. He also checked for a grandparent whom he knew as Moische SUPOSKY and found him, although the mangled transcription read McIsche for the given name.

A specialist in UK family history, he also provides private professional research. Using the new database, he also located break-throughs for two private clients in about 30 minutes in the database.

Tracing the Tribe's UK readers may see Laurence at two upcoming events, so be sure to say hello.

He'll be presenting "Tracing Ancestors and Relatives" at the UK Limmud Conference 2009, December 27-31, at the University of Warwick. Laurence wears another hat as the MyHeritage.com UK Genealogy Advisor and will also be speaking at London's Who Do You Think You Are LIVE in February 2010 in London.

Questions on UK research for Laurence? Contact him here.