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Printed and digital copies of civil registration records from 1837, including birth, marriage and death certificates can be ordered from the General Register Office.

We hold local marriage notice books from 1837-1982 (ref. C/SRT). These are not digitised and can only be viewed in our Reading Room. No comparable records for births or deaths are held.

Not available online, but a free index can be searched at FreeBMD, and via Ancestry Library Edition.

The General Register Office also maintains their own index of historic births (1837-1916) and deaths (1837-1957).

Original census returns from 1841 are held at The National Archives, for which researchers use digital and microfilm copies. Census returns are closed to the public for 100 years, so the most recent census currently available from 1921, however it is currently only free to search at The National Archives and a small number of other organisations.

We hold microfilm copies of local census returns from 1841-1901.

We also hold original 1821 and 1831 Poplar census returns (ref. L/ASP/E/9), which unlike most pre-1841 censuses include the names of residents.

Census returns from 1841-1911 are available online on several popular genealogy sites, including Ancestry Library Edition.

Full digital images of the 1821 and 1831 Poplar censuses with names indexes are being uploaded to the Archives Online section of our website in second half of 2020.

Registers of other places of worship in Tower Hamlets may be held by The London Archives or at the institution. The National Archives also holds a large number of nonconformist registers.

We hold original registers for some non-Anglican places of worship in the borough. For further details see our guide to places of worship.

Marriage registers for Princelet (formerly Princes) Street Synagogue, Spitalfields, from 1897 to 1907 are available on our website.

Copies of nonconformist registers held by The National Archives (1567-1970) and London Metropolitan Archives (1694-1931) are available via Ancestry Library Edition.

The most complete collection of London electoral registers is held at The London Archives, and Guildhall Library has an extensive collection of trade and telephone directories for the whole of the British Isles from 1667 to 1990.

We hold electoral registers for the Tower Hamlets area from 1901 and London trade directories from 1800, however there are gaps in both collections.

London electoral registers from 1832 to 1965 and select trade directories from 1763 to 1943 can be accessed via Ancestry Library Edition.

The University of Leicester also has 675 free and fully-searchable digitised volumes from their Historical Directories collection on their website.

The London Archives holds land tax assessment records and other related documents. A special extra tax assessment was made nationally in 1798-1800, and The National Archives holds records relating to this in the series IR 23.

Explore over 1000 tax-related documents in our collections, 1700-1960s. Some areas like Stepney are not very well represented in earlier records.

Selected London rate books from 1684 to 1907 are available via Ancestry Library Edition.

Many local school records have been retained by the institution, deposited at The London Archives or have not survived.

We hold records of over fifty local schools, see our Education research guide for further information.

School records under 100 years containing pupil information will be closed under Data Protection legislation.

A selection of our school admission and log-books from 1870-1914 are available via Findmypast.

Local school records covered in this dataset include the Central Foundation Girls’ School. For further details see our Education research guide.

Most surviving apprenticeship bindings can be found in livery company records, the majority of which are now administered by The London Archives.

We hold apprenticeship registers for the parish of St Mary Stratford Bow from 1802 to 1827 (L/SMS/C/9).

Some apprenticeship records from 1400 to 1900 can be found at The Records of London's Livery Companies Online (ROLCO) website, and London Apprenticeship Abstracts for 1442 to 1850 are available via Findmypast.

Most historic workhouse and hospital records are held at The London Archives. Many hospital archives are also held by successor NHS Trusts.

Some early pre-1836 workhouse and poor law records can be found in our civil (local government) parish collections including settlement examinations. These are not digitised and are available to consult in our Reading Room.

Most Manorial Records for the London area are held by The London Archives. You can search for manorial records held elsewhere using the Manorial Documents Register.

We hold four manorial books in our collection from Poplar and Bromley manors (ref. P/PLC/6/1).

The Manorial Documents Register (MDR) is the official index to English and Welsh manorial records and provides brief descriptions of documents and details of their locations in public and private hands.

Records of Coroner’s Inquests for London are not kept in entirely. They are retained as a sample only by The London Archives.

Not available online, however detailed descriptions of historic coroner’s inquests can be found in local newspapers, many of which are can be searched via the British Newspaper Archive.

Travel and migration records are held by the Home Office, with older records transferred to The National Archives.

Many records relating to international travel and migration are available through Ancestry Library Edition, including Incoming Passenger Lists (1878-1960) and Alien Arrivals (1810-1811, 1826-1869).

Military records are held by the Ministry of Defence, which still hold World War Two service records, however older records including surviving World War One service records have been transferred to The National Archives.

World War One Service Records have been digitised and made available via Ancestry Library Edition.

Tower Hamlets Cemetery burial registers are held at The London Archives.

We hold no original cemetery burial registers in our collections but do have several copies and transcriptions.

After the closure of local parish burial grounds in the 1850s the City of London Cemetery became a place where many local people were buried. 

A searchable index of burial registers for Tower Hamlets Cemetery from 1841-1966 is available via Ancestry Library Edition.

Explore City of London Cemetery and Crematorium burial and some cremation registers online. 

Other useful websites from tracing burial records include Find A Grave, Billion Graves, and JewishGen for the online worldwide Jewish burial registry.