Skip to Main Content

English & Welsh Resources for Family Historians: Knights and Nobles

The State Library of South Australia has a large number of resources that may assist you in tracing your English or Welsh ancestry. This guide also contains websites of interest, contact details for relevant organisations and tips & tricks.

Introduction

This page has a listing of resource available at the State Library of South Australia that may assist your research.  Also included are resources giving background on the Peerage and Landed Gentry in general.

In the time of Henry VIII heralds where sent out to document the noble families and their right to hold titles and lands.  These where known as visitations.  Part of the work of the heralds was to produce a family tree for each family.  These visitation records have survived and many of them are available at the State Library as part of our Harleian Collection (see tab above).

If you are trying to trace information about Coats of Arms or heraldic details in general go to the Heraldry tab above.

Records available via Ancestry.com

The following links will take you to indexes available via Ancestry.com.  You will be able to search for information and see search results, however to see original records or transcripts you will need to use the subscription database Ancestry.com.  The State Library of South Australia has a subscription to Ancestry.com (Library edition) that may be used within the Library.

Prince of Wales feathers

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Knights & Nobles

Many of the resources below give background detail to the system of knights and knighthood.