Frequently Asked Questions

Can I see actual records online?

Some indexes to records are available online:

• Some Non-conformist registers;
• List of Bilston cholera victims;
• Parish registers for Bilston St Leonard, Wednesfield St Thomas, Willenhall St Giles and Wolverhampton St Peter;
• Monumental inscriptions;
• Surname index to the 1891 census;
• List of probate documents, etc.

Offline documents constantly reviewed

There are many thousands of documents held at Wolverhampton Archives & Local Studies amounting to millions of pages, many of which are hand-written and bulky.

The service has 5 staff, all of whom are fully occupied with acquiring, cataloguing and repairing documents, as well as operating the busy public service. It would be impossible for staff to begin large scale digitisation of collections although we are constantly reviewing our site and it is likely that some additional items will be added in the future.

Donations of material welcome

We are always grateful to people who donate copies of their work to our collections and it is through the efforts of local researchers that we are able to have on our site the 1891 census surname index and the transcripts of parish registers. Transcribing and indexing these documents took several years and would have been outside the scope of the existing staff. If you are working on a similar project and would be happy to allow us to add a hard copy to our collection and/or a digital copy to our website, please contact us.

Are the GRO indexes available online?

The General Register Office indexes to birth, marriage and death certificates are available to search online at www.1837online.com on a pay-per-view basis.

There is also a co-operative project, FreeBMD, which has been granted permission by the Office for National Statistics to digitise the indexes and make them available over the Internet. This massive project is being undertaken by volunteers from around the world and will take a long time to complete (there are approximately 100 million entries to digitise!). The project is concentrating on the births, marriages and deaths registered 1837-1900, although later information is accepted. Search the available records online and find out about becoming a project volunteer at http://freebmd.rootsweb.com

Is the IGI (International Genealogical Index) available online?

Yes - the International Genealogical Index, compiled by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) is online and searchable by name at www.familysearch.org

Why can't I open the PDF files on the site?

This may be because you don't have the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. Download it free of charge here and then run the downloaded file to install the program.

If you do have the Acrobat Reader installed, then make sure it is the latest version. Our PDF files were created using Adobe Acrobat 4.05 and may not display correctly if you are using an earlier version of the reader.

If you do have the latest version of the Acrobat Reader installed and are still having problems then try right-clicking on the link to the file you want to see and selecting 'Save Target As...' from the menu. This will save the file to your hard drive and you should be able to open it from there. If you are still unable to open the file, please contact us. We are not technical experts but we will do our best to help!

When will I be able to search your catalogues online?

We are currently working on a project with our colleagues in the other Black Country archive services to catalogue and digitise many thousands of items as part of the ‘Documenting the Workshop of the World’ project. This will culminate in the launch of an on-line catalogue.

In the meantime the text of many of our catalogues are available to search on the Access to Archives website www.a2a.org.uk.

Please don't hesitate to contact us if you want to check our holdings on a particular subject.

Do you accept online credit card payments?

We are able to accept payments by credit and debit card for orders placed over the phone, by fax or by post. As yet, we cannot process credit cards online and we strongly advise against sending us credit card details via email as this is not a secure medium.

Opening times

Our office at The Molineux Hotel in Wolverhampton is open five days a week, including Saturdays. See below for details of our opening times:

• Monday - closed 
• Tuesday - 10am to 5pm
• Wednesday - 10am to 7pm
• Thursday - 10am to 5pm 
• Friday - 10am to 5pm
• Saturday - 10am to 1pm
• Sunday - closed 

The service is normally closed for two weeks during November for stock review.

Easter Bank Holiday

The service will close at 5pm on Thursday April 9, 2009 and re-open at 10am on Wednesday April 15, 2009.

Contact us

For more information you can contact us using our online contact form or by;

e-mail: archives@wolverhampton.gov.uk
Telephone: 01902 552480
Minicom: 01902 555554
Fax: 01902 552481

Write or visit:
Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies
Wolverhampton City Council
Molineux Hotel Building
Whitmore Hill
Wolverhampton
WV1 1SF

Location map of Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies.