Bedfordshire & Luton Archives and Records Service

Bedfordshire & Luton Archives and Records Service have an excellent section giving information on their holdings for family history researchers, including guides to the most commonly used resources they hold and guidance on researching family history in the county.

There is also a useful list of organisations containing records not held by the Archives themselves.

 

I've found the BLARS website very useful, as someone with Bedfordshire ancestry living outside the UK - their online catalogue (while not complete) is easy to search for names, and when you do find something of interest, there's often quite a lot of information in the catalogue entry itself. They also have an efficient copying service that you can pay for online, if you find something of interest in the catalogue.

It's worth cross-referencing with the gaol records and checking any names of interest in both catalogues. I haven't ordered copies of any of the paper files from the gaol records to see what you get (the database information is reasonably extensive).

 

BLARS has now become Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service.