History research at your library

Coronavirus (COVID-19) – libraries

Belhus library, part of South Ockendon Centre, is open from Monday 6 July. The opening hours will be 10am - 4pm Monday to Friday and 10am -1pm on Saturday. Other libraries remain closed until further notice. You can access newspapers and magazines, get e-books and e-audio and take part in job club sessions online.

Go to our coronavirus (COVID-19) safety page for information on visiting re-opened libraries and items due for return. Items due between 1 January and 31 July have had their loan dates extended automatically to 1 September. Please do not put borrowed items in library book drops or letterboxes.

Family history

Every Thurrock library gives free use of the Ancestry and Find My Past websites.

A Thurrock or Essex County Council library card is all you need, but you can only access Ancestry and Find My Past through our library computers. You can use library computers for up to 2 hours a day.

As well as books on how to research your family, Grays library has a collection of family history resources on the first floor:

  • Thurrock parish registers – births, deaths, marriages – on microfilm
  • Thurrock census returns on microfilm 1841-1891
  • Thurrock census returns on microfiche 1901
  • indexes to census returns 1851,1881
  • Thurrock electoral registers 1936-2001

Login to your library account for advice on how to access these services while our library buildings are temporarily closed due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

Library account login