Place:North Somerset, Somerset, England

North Somerset is a unitary authority administered independently within the ceremonial county of Somerset. It was established in 1996 when the County of Avon was abolished. Its administrative headquarters is in the town hall in Weston-super-Mare. It replaced the Woodspring District in Avon County.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article North Somerset. especially the sections entitled "History" and "Settlements and Communications", "Parishes" (with the list of civil parishes and former rural districts) and "Economy".

Research Tips

Archives and Libraries

• The Somerset Heritage Centre (incorporating what was formerly the Somerset Record Office and the Somerset Local Studies Library) can be found at its new location at Langford Mead in Taunton. The Heritage Centre has an email address:archives@somerset.gov.uk.

• The Somerset County Council homepage has a search facility leading to pages of interest, including maps from the First and Second Ordnance Survey (select Maps and Postcards from the list at the left, then enter the parish in the search box)

• Old Maps Online has a further selection of local maps

• A Vision of Britain has a wide selection of articles of local interest.

• Each Library in Somerset has its own web page. The index page to libraries leads to each of the libraries along with the facilities to be found there.

• The Somerset pages of GENUKI contain a great amount of useful data and references to other websites. Some of the web links are not up to date.

• The four family history societies covering parts of Somerset are:

• Bristol & Avon FHS
• Somerset & Dorset FHS
• Weston super Mare FHS
• Friends of Somerset Archives