Genealogy Chat

Hello....Where can I look up information before 1841? Up to this point I have been using the census' and the BMD indexes to track relations. I have no idea where to look now...any suggesstions? Thanks! Joanne

pre July 1837 you have to use parish registers, these no other way to get the info. the registers usually contain christenings/baptisums, marrages and burials. Try looking on www.familysearch.org for the IGI or www.familyhistoryonline.net both have some parish register transcriptions. Familyhistoryonline also has some stuff to do with wills.

Hi Joanna, Pre 1837 it is a case of visiting the records office that holds the records for the area of interest to view the parish records. Pre 1837 the parish records gave baptism dates (not neccesarily birth dates), Marriage dates, and Burial dates (not death) and they still do. You may even find children who have not been registered on the BMD on the PR.s. I have found many at later dates. Some information is available online but it is very patchy. The Familysearch site can be used as a research aid, but is by no means complete. Also I would always confirm by viewing the relevant parish records any information found on the IGI. Good luck Keith

Thanks for the info. about parrish records. Unfortunately that makes it a bit tricky for me though as I am on the other side of the ocean. Without the info available by computer I'd have almost nothing. Oh well, I'll keep digging online for whatever bits and pieces are left. I appreactiate the help! Thanks Joanne

Hi Joanne: Some time there are parishes listed. The records are hard to prove as being correct. I heard some parishes have CD for certain time frames. The family search is not bad, and you may luck out if someone has posted them. One of your ancestors lives in the USA and belong to the church. They will post generations back. I have tried this site, it may be of help. Not all records are posted. Most posting are for comfomist., large churchs. http:// www(.)lan-opc(.)org(.)uk/ good luck, I also need to be assisted as record are few and far between in North America.

Joanne, not being in the UK isn't necessarily a problem - I'm in Italy and I have access to parish records. You need to contact your nearest LDS (Mormon) centre, because they've microfilmed an enormous number of UK parish records (though not all). If they don't have the records you want they'll order them for a small fee (I pay 1 euro per film here in Italy). You can find a list of LDS centres here: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHC/frameset_fhc.asp To see which films you need to order, have a look at their catalogue: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp It's an excellent service, and their volunteers are prohibited from talking to you about religion, so you don't need to worry that they'll try and convert you.

There are also a few parish records online, as other people have mentioned. Have a look at the thread 'Parish Records on the internet' on this board, which contains a list of the ones people here have found. I've bumped it up to the top of the page for you. You can also use the IGI: http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Search/frameset_search.asp?PAGE=igi/search_IGI.asp&clear_form=true which contains LDS transcriptions of parish records. Always check out what you find there in the parish registers. The 'extracted' entries should be reliable, but the 'submitted' entries very often aren't.