TheGenealogist.co.uk has just launched a new collection of British telephone directories. Complementing the early UK Telephone Directory from 1899-1900 that is already available on the site, this new release includes the 1907 Post Office National Directory, which adds a resource for finding names and addresses before the 1911 census.

This directory was published at a time when the telephone was becoming more important to our ancestors. The Post Office's first coin-operated call box had been installed at London’s Ludgate Circus just the year before, and Trunk (long distance) telephone charges were reduced to half-price for telephone calls made after 7pm and before 7am.

TheGenealogist has also released the 1938 South Wales District Post Office Telephone Directory. The big contrast between this and the earlier directories are that so many more ordinary people had become telephone subscribers. For this reason the directories were by now split up into regions to cope with the large number of names and addresses.

Meanwhile the site has also just released online the United States WW2 Prisoner of War records collection to complement those that are already online for British and former Empire Prisoners of War of the Germans in WW1 and WW2. These new records reveal the names of US military as well as US and some Allied civilians who were prisoners of war and internees. They cover the years 1942-1947, including prisoners of both Germany and Japan.

TheGenealogist has also successfully completed a project to release over 9.8 million fully searchable records for the registers of baptisms, marriages, marriage banns and burials for Norfolk, with images of the original registers.

Released in partnership with The Norfolk Record Office, the registers of baptisms, marriages, burials and banns of marriage cover the majority of parishes in the Diocese of Norwich. This also includes a number of Suffolk parishes in and near Lowestoft that make up the deanery of Lothingland. Also covered by this release are the parishes in the deanery of Fincham and Feltwell that were part of the Diocese of Ely in southwest Norfolk.

In another record release TheGenealogist has added more than 37,450 individuals to its Baptism Transcripts for Worcestershire in partnership with Malvern Family History Society, expanding its coverage and bringing the total to over 2 million individuals. These records range from the years 1544 to 1891.