Some of our online payments including garden waste and licensing will be unavailable from 2pm Thursday 28 March until midday Tuesday 2 April due to essential maintenance.

Local history

You can find records relating to places which are now in South Gloucestershire at the Gloucestershire archives. Contact the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub to make an appointment if you wish to visit.

Other records are held by Bristol Archives.

You can also visit our museums and heritage sites webpage for information on local collections and archives.

Family history

You can research your family history through Ancestry online which is available from our library e-resources.

You can also get expert family history advice from volunteers of the Gloucestershire Family History Society.

Burial records

We keep records of burials in the cemeteries we manage at Mayshill, Filton, Mangotsfield and Kingswood Remembrance Park.​

Records held for Mayshill date back to 1973, Filton to 1947 and Mangotsfield to 1880. They contain the name of the person buried, the grave number and the person who bought the grave.

If you are researching your family tree you can get burial records from us. There is a fee for this service.

Contact us by email at cemeteries@southglos.gov.uk or call 01454 865831 for more information.

Records of burials in churchyards in South Gloucestershire are available through the relevant parish church.

Support research

View publications on the history of areas in South Gloucestershire and support local history research through Victoria County History Gloucestershire.

Researching black history

Sources of information about local black history: 

Index of early black presence in Bristol 

Bristol museums black history records 

Bristol museums records about black communities in Bristol 

Bristol museums schools textbook on transatlantic slavery 

Bristol Radical History Group 

Gloucestershire archive sources for black, asian and minority ethnic history 

Other useful links about black history: 

Black Cultural Archives 

National Trust approach to addressing colonialism and historic slavery 

Centre for the study of the legacies of british slavery 

The Royal Historical Society race, ethnicity and equality report 

Forum on transatlantic slavery and legacies in museums

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