Findmypast.co.uk to publish Westminster Archive records

Findmypast.co.uk has been awarded a digitisation contract by the City of Westminster Council and the Westminster Archives Centre, which will lead to the publication of 10 million historic records from the archives online for the first time.

Spanning the years 1538 to 1945, the records will cover the following London churches:

• St Anne's, Soho
• St Clement Danes
• St George's Hanover Square
• St James' Westminster
• St Margaret's Westminster
• St Martin-in-the-Fields
• St Mary-le-Strand
• St Paul's, Covent Garden

As well as baptisms, marriages and burials, the Westminster Collection includes such gems as rate books, orphan and apprentice records, vestry minutes, cemetery registers, charity documents, workhouse admission and discharge books, settlement examinations, churchwardens' accounts, bastardy and poor law records, wills, militia and watch records.

Guy Strachan, digitisation manager at findmypast.co.uk, said: ‘The City of Westminster Archives Centre is an absolute treasure trove for family and local historians.’

The records are expected to launch later in 2012 and will become fully searchable at findmypast.co.uk.