The Queen’s Jubilee Celebrations Online

In celebration of her Diamond Jubilee, and of Queen Victoria's birthday on 24 May, Queen Elizabeth II has made the journals of Queen Victoria available to the public.

The journals, running to over 43,000 pages, provide a picture of Queen Victoria's life from the first entry in 1832 at the age of 13 until 10 days before her death aged 81 in 1901.

Digital images of every page in Queen Victoria's diaries are available at Queen Victoria's Journals . Full transcriptions and keyword searching of the journal entries cover the period from Queen Victoria's first diary entry in July 1832 to her marriage to Prince Albert in February 1840. This is an ongoing project and journal entries will continue to be transcribed.

The 141 volumes were made public by the Royal Archives and Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University. It took four months to scan all the journals at Windsor Castle, where they were stored.

The journals, launched on the anniversary of Queen Victoria's birthday, provide an account of significant moments in her life throughout her 63-year reign, from her coronation and marriage to Prince Albert to the Diamond Jubilee of 1897. Important historical events such as the Crimean and Boer Wars are also traced in the diaries.

Victoria insisted that the diaries should be rewritten after her death by one of her children, omitting anything unsuitable. Thirteen of the original diaries are also online.

Royal Archives has also undertaken an online partnership project with website Find my Past to enable the public to trace ancestors who have worked for the royal household. There are 50,000 searchable records from 1526 to 1924 which give details such as name, occupation, age, length of service and salary. For more information go to http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/news/royal-archives

And there’s more:

The British National Archives has also digitized a collection of 60 congratulatory addresses presented to Queen Victoria. This new online exhibition contains 60 of their favorite messages of congratulations and good wishes from around the world.

The beautiful, rarely-seen congratulatory addresses in the Privy Purse series (PP 1) were presented to Queen Victoria to celebrate her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

The senders are many and varied, but comprise principally institutions of local government; schools and colleges; social, cultural, educational and religious societies; military and medical establishments; and those of trades associations and manufacturing companies.