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Search Ancestry’s nursing registers
If your ancestor followed in Florence Nightingale’s footsteps, read Richard Holt’s advice to…
If your ancestor was a nurse, you can trace their career through detailed registers held by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). These records, digitised on Ancestry, cover nursing from the late 1800s to 1968. Most nurses listed are women, but male nurses – especially in mental health – also appear.
Browse the 1898-1968 collection
Ancestry’s ‘UK & Ireland, Nursing Registers, 1898–1968’ collection includes several types of records spanning seven decades. The earliest are directories published by Sir Henry Burdett, like Burdett’s Official Nursing Directory (1894–1899), offering early nurse listings before professional bodies existed. Also included are membership registers from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), founded in 1916. These cover 1916 to 1923 and list nurses who met membership criteria and paid fees.