Sir Laurence Olivier and Kate Winslet are among the famous names whose ancestors can be traced in a new digital archive of centuries of records by Surrey County Council (SCC).
SCC has teamed up with family history website Ancestry.co.uk to publish more than 2.5 million historic Surrey records, detailing baptisms, marriages and burials from 1538 to 1987.
The originals are kept at the Surrey History Centre, which is run by SCC, where they are preserved.
Visitors to the centre can use Ancestry.co.uk for free and members of Surrey’s libraries can also search the records free of charge at any branch.
More records will be published online during the year.
Among the other famous names featured in the records are authors PG Wodehouse, Lewis Carroll, Sir Barnes Nevill Wallis, the inventor of the bouncing bomb used in the Dambusters Raid, and Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who captained Darwin’s voyage around the world.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here