Address
Houses of Parliament
London
SW1A 0PW
Telephone
020 7219 3074
Websites
www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives (UK Parliament: Parliamentary Archives)
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/parliament (The National Archives Research Guide. How to look for records of Parliament. This is a brief guide to researching British government records on Parliament. Parliamentary records are wide-ranging and can sometimes be complicated)
www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/The_Parliamentary_Archives_(U.K.) (FamilySearch Research Wiki. The Parliamentary Archives U.K.)
Notes
The archive holds the records of House of Lords and the House of Commons dating from 1497. The archived material includes acts, bills, private acts, petitions, protestation returns, deposited plans and naturalizations. Consult chancery records for earlier parliamentary records. A number of lists or returns of Roman Catholics can be found in the archives.
Private Acts were used, amongst other things, to gain naturalization and divorces before the reforms during the 19th century. Bills were submitted to parliament to gain approval for the construction of roads, railways and canals and the documents can contain the names of many individuals involved in the process.
Search for legislation from 1267 to the present day at www.legislation.gov.uk. The online catalogue can be found at https://archives.parliament.uk. A set of Research Guides is available at the website covering subjects such as Protestation Returns, Naturalisations and Roman Catholics.
