Records of two million members of the secretive Freemasons have been published online, showing that its members during Britain’s imperial heyday included Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde and Rudyard Kipling.
Membership records from 1733 to 1923 — mainly in Britain and the British Empire — have been digitised and published on the family history website Ancestry, the company said Monday.
“The records demonstrate the extensive involvement which Freemasons have had in British society,” Diane Clements, director of the Freemasonry library and museum, said in a statement.
The records show details including Freemasons’ names, profession, residence and when they joined the society, which grew out of guilds in Britain in the Middle Ages and became a club for men involving ritual and symbols.
http://news.yahoo.com/freemason-membership-records-spanning-190-years-online-162132188.html
#AllTheNews 