New online family research resources

Nov 29 2007 Western Mail

ONLINE family tree researchers will be able to delve 300 years further back into their histories from today, thanks to a new register of burials in Wales and England.

The database, available on www.findmypast.com, dates back to 1538, predating the centralised registration of deaths in Wales and England, which began in 1837. It includes details of more than 13 million burials contained in parish registers, non-conformist registers, Roman Catholic, Jewish and other registers as well as cemetery and cremation records.

All the records are cross-searchable, making it possible to search for ancestors by surname without needing to know where in the country they came from.

British man admits assault in plea deal

A BRITISH businessman who was facing trial in New York for rape has admitted a lesser charge as part of a plea bargain, it emerged yesterday.

David Nicholson, the former head of a multinational executive recruitment company, pleaded guilty to assaulting the 41-year-old British woman in a hotel in Manhattan in 2000.

The plea was part of a deal under which the 51-year-old will avoid a prison term and be allowed to serve a five-year probation sentence in the UK.

Prosecutors had originally claimed that on the night of the alleged assault, Nicholson had dinner with the woman in the World Trade Center, and spiked her drink with a drug that rendered her helpless. Nicholson, from London, is to be sentenced on December 19.

‘Nothing illegal found’ in full search of jail

A FULL lockdown search of a jail yesterday failed to find any illegal items, said the Prison Service.

Specially trained staff and dogs were used for the search at the category C HMP Featherstone in Staffordshire after a suspected security breach.

The Ministry of Justice said it followed information received by authorities at the 615-cell prison.

The Prison Service refused to confirm media reports that the move was related to the suspected smuggling of two guns into the jail.