Parish Registers where art thou!

For genealogy purposes the English/Welsh parish register indexes are in a mess, on the internet they are stored everywhere and nowhere. Naturally, the one needed is not there. Many have been transcribed and indexed by various Family History Societies (FHS) and to improve their finances they have done various deals with the common subscription sites. The only way to find if any of them holds the one required is to visit these sites and have a look. I will not be considering these sites, instead I will be concentrating on the free sites - why they haven't pooled their resources I cannot begin to understand.

For the sake of convenience the registers may be broken down into two categories pre and post July 1837, at which time national registration was introduced, however the registration of births was not compulsory until 1875 and prior to that date some records may only be found in the parish baptism records.

Post July 1837

Free BMD is the workhorse of the post July 1837 registrations, giving the GRO Reference for recorded births, marriage and deaths. Whilst these are normally regarded as the source for obtaining the certificates, they can also be used for finding parish marriage registrations using Marriage Locator.

Marriage Locator is a new site which aims to decode the GRO marriage registration code to give the registration district and the name of the church at which the registration took place. Thus, instead of having to buy the certificate the details can easily be found in the local parish registers or using sites such as On-Line Parish Clerks (Genealogy) which are listed under parish and church names. Marriage Locator was set up by the Guild of One-Name Studies but help with this project is open to all volunteers, please contact mary.rix@one-name.org if you have access to local records, and wish to assist.

UK BMD is another site where volunteers have indexed the parish registers from within their counties, again from 1837. On going to the site, click the "Local BMD" button on the left and the counties which have taken part in this project can be found. Each uses a standard format and may include the reference for a local office from which a copy certificate can be obtained.

Pre July 1837

The On-Line Parish Clerks project covers the earlier records as well as those post 1837. Usually it is possible to search all the records for each church, but not across all the churches in a parish. Hence it is better to try and establish the likely church for the registration. A number of the records contain an LDS film number, and it is not clear whether the LDS transcriptions have been used, or it is the reference for the microfilm in the local office - I hope it is the latter?

FreeReg aims to cover the whole of the UK, and probably has better coverage than other sites mentioned (except Free BMD post 1837). As with all volunteer projects coverage varies between different counties and parishes, however coverage has improved significantly in recent years. FreeReg probably gives more record details than other sites.

Of course, one site which must not be forgotten is Family Search, especially since the revisions which are currently in hand. It was on this site that after a number of years of searching that I found my 5th great grandfather, born in the early 1700s

General

When viewing all these sites it is worth remembering that they are secondary sources (unless the images are provided), and some of the originals, and not necessarily only the very old ones, can be difficult to read. The spelling of names may also vary, particularly if the informant was illiterate. Ages, especially for marriages, should be treated with care as some would have declared themselves as of "full age" when in reality they were under 21 and needed parental consent. Ages at death may be nothing more than a guess.

Finally, There are numerous small, e.g. family, sites which contain abstractions of parish registers. Many of these may be found on a CD available from One Stop Genealogy . The repositories for all registration districts are given by GENUKI.

© Ron Ferguson 2011

Genealogy Patience Pays!!

We all know of the seemingly impenetrable brick walls which we bump into on a fairly regular basis. I hit one one these with my 4th great-grandfather, Benjamin Ferguson, who, according to the 1841 census was living in Kendal, and born in 1766 in England but not in the county of Westmorland. He did not appear on the 1851 census, so I assumed that he had moved on to higher things.

Over the years I have tried to find out more about him, visiting the Kendal Archives to find his burial, but without any luck, in fact I cannot even find the christenings of his children in the Kendal Parish Registers. My research has not been helped by the fact that northern England is an outpost of internet indexing, meaning that the Union Tavern in Kendal is almost a second home!

Regularly I search new registers which come on-line, and three months ago I had a minor break through, I found a Benjamin Ferguson born in 1776 in Pardshaw, Cockermouth, Cumberland, on the Beta Family Search site. OK, the surname was spelt "Furgison", but the given names of the family were those commonly found in my family. Could this be my long lost relative? With still some way to go, I contacted Kendal Archives again to see if they had the Kendal Settlement Certificates for the period between 1770 and 1790, but unfortunately they only had those to 1734.

Every now and again I switch the main search site which I use, and this month moved back to Findmypast. As always, I carried out a quick check on my brick walls and nearly fell off my chair when I found my Benjamin on the 1851 census living with his, now married, daughter Mary Airey, of whom I had never heard! This time his surname was given as "Ferginson" and his place of birth Cockermouth - Eureka!! I am left with another brick wall though - where does his father "Samual Furgison" (sic), date of birth unknown, come from??

Advances can happen in most unusual ways. Like many of you I try and help other researchers whenever I can, and this week received an email asking if an Ann Owen born 1807, father George, had any connection with the Owen family of Prescot, Lancashire, in my tree. Not having an Ann in my Owen family I asked for more details, only to be be told that since her Ann and my family came from the same area she wondered if there may be a connection.

A Richard Owen born 1791 is my one of the 3rd great grandfathers on my maternal side, and I wondered if Richard might have had a brother called George who might have been Ann's father. I have not even looked at this side of my family for years, so I started by looking for his birth in Lancashire OnLine Parish Clerk, and there was his christening, and the names of my previously unknown 4th great grandparents.

Yes, persistence does pay, as time goes by it may not seem like it, but consistently checking records and revisiting sites which may well have been updated since last time often brings results. Now, if only I could get my hands on the person who ignited the 1851 Salford Census records and with it my 3rd great grandfather's history, but congratulations to Manchester & Lancashire FHS who have recovered so much of them.

© Ron Ferguson 2010

Of this Parish...

In England and Wales, Parish Registrations of births, marriages and deaths started in 1538, prior to that date details were kept on sheets of paper, and 13 years later in 1531 for Scotland. Civil Registrations were not introduced in England and Wales until 1837 and 1854 in Scotland.

Prior to the above dates Wales was using the patronymic system of naming, eg. Evan Ab Evan (Evan the son of Evan, or "vench" meaning daughter of). Whilst the lowlands of Scotland used recognisable surnames before the 16c, it was not until the 16c - 17c that most highlanders adopted the name of their clan chief. However, it would be quite wrong to think that we have a guaranteed way of tracing or ancestors back to the 16c, I wish!

Unfortunately, the Scottish showed their admirable resistance to "government interference" and most of their 900 parishes kept, at best, only partial records until just before 1854. These may be found at Scotlands People. In England between 1653 and 1660 the keeping of records was transferred from the churches to a civil office, confusingly, also know as the "Parish Register". Suffice to say that few of these records exist - who said that governments losing data is a new thing :-). The full timeline for registration law can be found on my website.

It is only since 1992 that all birth and baptism records over 150 years old have had to be kept safe, usually in County Record Offices, so many of the older registers are damaged and difficult to read, and before the 17c - 18c are often in Latin! The parish priests were, from 1598, obliged to compile records to send to their bishop, known as "Bishops Transcripts", but these are incomplete and transcription errors common.

In the south of England the ecclesiastic parishes are usually coterminous with the civil parishes, but this is much less true in the north where the former could encompass a number of townships, each of which, or a combination of them, were later to become civil parishes. If an entry cannot be found where expected, do look in adjacent parishes since there was quite a high, but local, migration.

All transcriptions, whilst welcome, cannot beat reading the original. Apart from transcription errors, much is often omitted; names of putative fathers; occupations; and especially odd comments from the vicar immediately come to mind. Finally, do not ignore the records post 1837 in England and Wales (1854, Scotland) because: registration was voluntary before 1875 in England and Wales, they can contain details omitted from the certificate, and will resolve incorrect copying of the register which may be found in the certificate. Yes, it does happen!

Websites

The best website for finding where a parish register is likely to be stored is probably the Society of Genealogists. Not many parishes have published their record details, but it is always worth trying Google. A growing collection of sites which should not be ignored is the on-line Parish Clerk which for a number of counties offers transcripts of the parish registers. Last, but not least is the IGI at Family Search.

© Ron Ferguson