Enrich your family tree with facts from Surrey records online

What’s your family link to Surrey? Search and view Surrey archives online at Findmypast to find out. Delve into birth records, military records, electoral rolls and more to make your Surrey family tree bloom.

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Step into Surrey’s past

The history of Surrey spans thousands of years. Its boundaries have changed as recently as the 19th and 20th centuries. Woking and Guildford are the county's most populated towns.

In 1215, King John sealed the Magna Carta at Runnymede in Surrey, a famous event considered the beginning of democracy in England.

Surrey’s forested and sparsely populated hills once served as hunting grounds for King Henry VIII. As a result, several royal places were built there, including Hampton Court, Richmond and Nonsuch.

Having remained mainly rural for several centuries, by the 1800s, Surrey was home to the world’s largest network of suburban railways, served by seven terminal stations in London. This enabled people to commute and led to the county’s population increase.

Surrey’s other claims to fame include Weybridge, acknowledged as the birthplace of British motorsport and home to Brooklands, the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit. Legendary guitarist Eric Clapton was born in Ripley in 1945, while punk revival band the Jam was formed in Woking in 1972.

Surrey Hills is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and covers around a quarter of the county’s land.

Start your search in Surrey’s local family history records

Heartbreak, heroes and humour. You’ll be amazed at what you can discover in old family records.

Surrey 1921 census: Collage of life in the 1920s

What was Surrey like in the 1920s?

Go back a century to discover where your Surrey ancestors were, what they were doing and who they were with one summer night in 1921. Only available online at Findmypast, the 1921 Census offers a fascinating glimpse into how life really was after the First World War.

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Extra! Extra! Millions of Surrey newspaper pages available online

Old newspapers hold a treasure trove of local and family history. Did your relatives make headline news or the birth, marriage and death columns?

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