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Can someone please explain why some counties have all of their parish records online, free to view, and others demand you pay or have to go in person to look at them.?

I'm afraid that's just the way it is!

Wendy - which counties have all of their parish records online, free to view?

Until this week, I wasn't aware of any - course now there's Kerry & Carlow - see:
http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/news.html

Putting parish records on-line is a mammoth task, they have to be either transcribed or scanned.
Transcription depends on the goodwill and availability of volunteers.
Scanning, although a lot faster, is dependent on the Archive in question having the right piece of kit - a very expensive piece of kit!

It is a job and a half to put them online.

Kent has very few records online. The part of Kent that is different is Medway (which is a unitary authority). They have scanned all the available Medway parish records (plus a few of the Kent ones - Gravesham and surrounding areas) and they are available online. They are not transcribed, there is no index, you have to search by church and have at least a rough idea of where to look and it is still a slow haul. But, it's cheaper and quicker than travelling to Chatham ( or wherever they are available to view).

FreeReg is an ongoing project where people are transcribing the info and it will gradually build into a free database. In the meantime, you either wait, volunteer to transcribe, join the local FHS, or pay to view.

Opting to transcribe for FreeReg would kill two birds with one stone. If you ask for the area you are interested in, you are doing it for yourself and others.

The downside is, that transcribed records are only as good as those doing the transcribing. We all know that names and places can be mangled by transcribers so you would still need to check the originals. But, hey - by volunteering you would be helping overall.

You could check the Familysearch site. If they have the records available you can order in the films and view them at your local Mormon Church.

Bear in mind that, 30 years ago when I started on this game, there was no internet - everything was done by post or by person. Nowadays it's a doddle in comparison!

Jill

Good morning all. The Essex Parishes at SEAX has every parish listed, with a good proportion of the records scanned and available to view. It is easier to just go to a transcription, but I like to look through the original entries, as I have found so many mistakes in the transcriptions when searching.
LDS Familysearch have a great original Norfolk collection in their Record Pilot.
What is frustrating me is I can look at the original records of Hallingbury, yet not Bishops Stortford, which is a few miles the other side of the Essex border in Hertfordshire.
FreeReg has provided some relief, but the records for London/Middlesex area is very poor.
What makes it that much more difficult for myself, and others is that we don't live in England, so can't just go to a parish or office. The exchange rate also makes buying records very expensive, and when we are talking about 350+ year old relatives, even more so when we are not 100% sure which certificate to order.
And Jill...I am seriously thinking about helping with transcribing for FreeReg. Although it would have to be later in history as Olde English is very hard for me to decipher.
Cheers...Wendy

The LMA records on Ancestry are a great help if you have London ancestors. I've saved such a lot on the marriages on there that it's been worth the extra sub.

Can you order the films in to your local Mormon Church?

Have you checked with local FHS? There are a lot of FHs online - or if not on line they quite often have websites - and listings of their records. If a family stayed in one area for several generations it can work out cheaper to buy the CD for the parish church ...

Jill

Unfortunately I couldn't afford Genes and Ancestry membership at same time, and hopefully I can save up for it later. I have so many areas and names to search it is too much to ask of other members.
I have searched through so many private family sites, and all come up with the same relatives with the same dates and stop at the same person...obviously all just taking information from other sites. As I posted earlier, one of the distant relatives was born/baptised, married and buried in 3 different parishes, and her husband, my 8x gret grandfather, was not born where she was, so theres at least 4 parish records I could have purchased...but found 75% of the information I needed via SEAX.
I am sure there is a Mormon church somewhere here in South Australia, but certainly not out in the country where I am. I will have to look into that prospect.
Thanks.

I was amazed when I googled Norbury Parish Church in Hazel Grove, Stockport, Cheshire hoping to find an ancestor who may have been buried there.

Not only does the church site show burials but also the MIs up to recent times.

Surely if one church can do this why can't others I wonder?

Well done to the Parish Church of Norbury.

Linda

Linda

I think it comes down to

....... money to do it

........ interest in doing it

........ having someone able and willing to do it



and remembering that it will all be up to volunteers to do it.



and how much can you ask volunteers to do when all churches are seeing reduced congregations, which means there are fewer people to do more work





sylvia

I think the logic is...you would have to expect that in this age of information, all records in the civilised world would be preserved, recorded and copied. I do believe that there are counties that are proud of their history and want to share it with the world, where others merely see a money making opportunity and, riding on the popularity of genealogy by the amateur slueth, limit access to those with a credit card.
There really is no excuse for available ancient records not to be allowed public access regardless what county/parish/town they are from.

But, Wendy


there must be millions upon millions of records that all have to be entered into the computer.

Digitization is not that easy when dealing with archaic languages


and delicate and/or disintergrating paper also adds to the problem.


Somehow, somewhere, someone will ahve to find the money to do all this, all while keeping modern entries up to date.


The National Archives in London have sold off the job of digitizating the 1901 and the 1911 censuses because they couldn't afford to do it



........... so where does that leave the poor church?


It's a wonderful idea, in the abstract ..... andas I alos live overseas, I would love it to be possible


but in all honesty, I don't see it EVER happening, and most certainly not in our life times.


Also ...... to be blunt

I think you should seriously consider dropping your Genes subscription and taking out either ancestry or findmypast


you'll get access to many more records than you do on Genes ........... which only delivers you to other sites anyway. GR does not carry or transcribe the records that you are paying to look at!

and it is those two sites that are transcribing or digitizing more and more records

Have you ever looked at the records that are carried on the other sites?

They make Genes look pitiful!




sylvia

I would be happy to transcribe anything, would give me something to do.

Where can I go to apply to do this?

I would prefer the south of England, Essex,Kent Sussex,Herts where I know the names of the villiages.

jax

What I meant Sylvia is that there are records on film in archives. They don't need to be transcribed...just copied onto the internet. If Essex and Norfolk, and I am guessing many others also, can put them on the internet for free to view, why can't the others? The records are already there, microfilmed and catalogued.
The money some of the places must have made over the years for requests should cover employing some of the many unemployed to help out.
As for joining ancestry...yes, most definitely a better option for records than genes..but...can you still get this wonderful discussion groups and researchers working together on Ancestry? That is the thing I love about Genes..interacting with total strangers and unknown distant relatives in discussion just like this.
Jax, I just received an email confirming my interest in transcribing from FreeReg! Just go to the FreeReg page and click on the appropriate link. I will know in a few days what area I will be looking at.

I only pay the standard membership (£9-£10) i think it was when i renewed that doesn't give any credits for search's but access to all other pages on this site.

Anyone searching in the Suffolk area here is a fantastic site with loads of records...

http://www.genealogylinks.net/uk/england/suffolk/suffolk_parishes.htm

You know what, I think I might turn this into a site for posting parish records people find online!!
I started with the Suffolk page.
Heres the SEAX link for Essex.
Go to Essex ancestors top right, and enter the information from the drop down boxes.

http://seax.essexcc.gov.uk/displayParishContents.asp

Norfolk records are available at LDS Familysearch. Go to advanced search/record pilot...Europe, then scroll down to Norfolk.
Bit tricky if you don't know what area your ancestor was from as there are so many parish images to view.

If anyone got ancestors from villages around Heckington Lincolnshire then this is excellent

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~heckington/index.html

For ancestors in Appledore/Northam area of North Devon this is a fantastic resource

http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/Northam/