How to find your Nursing Ancestors

Most of us have at least one nurse in our family tree. From the late 19^th century onwards, after the reforms of Florence Nightingale, nursing became a respectable profession; one of the few available to women. This post looks at some of the resources available so that you can find your nursing ancestors.

Pioneering Nurses

Free

Go to Pioneering Nurses

This website, run by King’s College, London, contains a database of the first nurses to sign up to the Royal British Nurses’ Association professional register in 1890. This was the first professional organization of nurses in the world. The aim of this project is to include the initial 1000 names with biographical details.

Royal College of Nursing, Historical Nursing Journals

Free

Go to RCN Historical Journals

The Royal College of Nursing was founded in 1916 and is now the largest professional association and union for nursing in the world. The RCN website has scanned copies of The Nursing Record from 1888 until 1902 when it became the British Journal of Nursing. Copies of the Journal 1902-1956 are also available for download

These publications are useful for genealogy research as they contain details of nursing appointments, marriages, retirements and deaths.

Ancestry

Subscription

Ancestry has four useful nursing record sets. Probably the most important are the UK & Ireland Nursing Registers.

UK & Ireland, Nursing Registers, 1898-1968

Go to the Nursing Registers

The main part of this collection is the set of registers of nurses published from 1922 to 1968. These were published by the three General Nursing Councils (one in England & Wales, one in Scotland and one in Ireland). These registers contain names of qualified nurses along with registration numbers and dates. Many entries also include a nurse’s home address and place and date of qualification.

For the years 1898-1921, this collection contains some local directories and one from the Royal College of Nursing 1916-23.

UK & Ireland, Queen’s Nursing Institute Roll of Nurses, 1891-1931

Go to the Roll of Nurses

Some of the money raised for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee of 1887 went towards founding the Queen’s Nursing Institute for district nursing. This roll is a list of district nurses trained by the institute and entries contain some or all of the following:

Name
Age or date of birth

Date of appointment
Where educated

Scotland, Nursing Applications, 1921-1945

Go to nursing applications

This is a database of applicants applying to become registered nurses in Scotland between 1921 and 1945. Entries contain some or all of the following:

Applicant’s name
Date of enrollment

Residence
Name and addresses of referees
Place of birth and date

Marital status
Places and dates of employment
Employer

Name of qualifying board

U.S., World War II Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files, 1942-1948

Go to the card files

This record set contains membership cards containing details of women in the Second World War who joined the US Cadet Nurse Corps. These were women between the ages of 17 and 35 who were offered scholarships to train to serve in the nursing profession during the war.

Findmypast

Findmypast has two nursing collections:

Military Nurses 1856-1994

Go to Military Nurses

This collection is made up of five smaller record sets:

Army Nursing Service; contains details of 238 nurses who served between 1823 and 1875
Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service; This service was set up post Boer War and contains details of 783 members between 1902 and 1926.
Royal Hospital Chelsea Nurses; A register of the mostly untrained nurses who served at the hospital between 1856 and 1910.

Scottish Women’s Hospitals; a database of women who served in these hospitals which were founded in 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War
WW2 Military Nurses; a database of 1244 nurses who served in Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, Queen Alexandra’s Reserve or the Territorial Army Nursing Service in France, during the Second World War.

The above record sets contain a combination of the following:

Name
Date of birth
Education

Position or rank
Unit or regiment
Service history

Awards given
Whether promoted to Sister, Matron or Superintendent
Training hospital

Father’s occupation
Age on appointment
Dates disembarked in France in WW2 (if applicable)

Queensland, Nurses Examinations 1914-1925

Go to Nurses Examinations

This collection is a database of people who took nursing examinations in Queensland between 1914 and 1925. The records contain some or all of the following: