Delve into detailed Derbyshire family history records online

Discover incredible family stories in Derbyshire archives online at Findmypast. Explore Derbyshire parish records, electoral registers and more to enrich your family tree and see how your past has shaped your present.

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Derbyshire down the years

Visitors from 200,000 years ago and the centuries ever since have all left their footprints in Derbyshire.

With the advent of innovative cotton-spinning machinery in the 18th century, the industrial textile factory system developed in Derbyshire. Demand for lime also intensified during the Industrial Revolution. Upon its completion, the Cromford and High Peak Railway gave the area the transport systems needed to move industrial goods.

In the 19th century, Derby built a reputation as an engineering centre. It was a significant railway manufacturing centre and the base for North Midland Railway.

Derbyshire is one of only three counties that can officially make cheese labelled Stilton. Water naturally filtered through limestone is bottled in Buxton and known worldwide as Buxton Water. Chatsworth House was built in Derbyshire during Elizabeth I’s reign, and Mary Queen of Scots was held in custody there several times throughout the 1570s. The house and its grounds have since made many film and TV appearances.

Did your ancestors benefit from the spring waters of Buxton, spin cotton in Belper, or engineer railways in Derby?

Picturesque Three Shire Heads in the Peak District marks the point where the borders of Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire meet.

Dig deep into Derbyshire’s local family history records

Leave no stone unturned. Find Derbyshire ancestors at home, school and war in our vast collection of revealing family records.

Derbyshire 1921 census: Collage of life in the 1920s

1920s life in Derbyshire

Get to know your Derbyshire relatives better by pinpointing them in the 1921 Census of England and Wales. Only online at Findmypast, this century-old snapshot chronicles their lives, loves and losses after World War 1.

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Read digitised Derbyshire newspapers dating back decades

Derbyshire newspapers from days gone by reveal your relatives' experiences like nothing else. Will you spot family members mentioned in the birth, marriage and death columns?

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Find local records from all over England

If your ancestors didn’t dwell in Derbyshire forever, find them again in our growing collection of historical resources. Our records cover every county, city, town and village in England.

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Select a region from the map or drop-down list to dig deeper into local record collections and learn about the history of your ancestral home.