Genealogy Chat

I've been doing my tree for most of this and everything's been great while ever I've been researching post 1841. Obviously to go back further I have to consult with parish registers. How does one do this? If you only know the rough area and general dates I assume this becomes rather difficult. Do they arrange their registers chronollogically or is there some sort of indexing system so i can easily look up surnames? My problem is that I am researching the Jones part of my family tree in, erm, North Wales! They do tend to be concentrated into a 20 square mile area but that means alot of churches and many permutations of dates. I'm hoping that the records will give the names of other family members, fathers, mothers etc and their addresses. Is this how they recorded them? Also a really stupid question but do parish registers record all BMDs? Any info gratefully received. Jonathan

Hi Jonathon, The parish records usually give the mother & fathers name on baptisms, but from the records I've seen in the 1700's only the fathers name is listed. Marriages usually give the fathers name of the bride & groom, but some early records only give the name of the people getting married. Do you know which parish they were living in from census returns? If so, then I would use this as a starting point, and look in the church/churches in that parish. I've found out a lot from parish records, some of which I've crossed checked with census's. Even found children that died young and wouldn't have appeared on the census. Other than that, I think it's all educated guess work!! Hope this helps and good luck with your Jone's. I don't envy you! Best wishes and happy hunting Paula P.S. Some records state where people were living. Some giving an address, others an area in the parish.

It can be fun, and rewarding, sometimes frustrating, searching microfilm of parish registers, and sometimes impossible to read the faint writing! Having said that, sometimes the only way to search is to go the records office for the area concerned. They will be in date order. If you to to genuki(.)org(.uk) - remove the brackets - or to rootsweb(.)com - ditto - you will find information about north Wales and mailing lists / message boards, where hopefully someone will give you pointers about parish records in that area. I have found some registers do give both father and mother - perhaps it depended on the vicar! Happy hunting! Joy

Hi Jonathan, Although it is a bit hard on the eyes sometimes going through parish records,it's very rewarding and you do usually find brothers,sisters,aunts,uncles etc,other children who have died etc.I still have my notes from looking at parish records in the 70's.I took down all the names of the surnames I was lloking for in births,marriages and deaths.When you get home it's easier to go through them and see who is related.Even now,years later,I'm starting to make more sense of what I wrote down all those years ago and have figured out a lot more relationships.The further back you go the writing tends to be more fancy and hard to understand,even looks like a foreign language sometimes! Good luck! Wendy Wendy

Hi Jonathan, I've searched parish registers and found tons of info in one day, but then another time I've got nowhere at all. All registers from 1813 were standardised. Baptism Registers have colomns for the date, child, parents (usually only the mother if the child was illegitimate, but sometimes the father is named as well), father's occupation & the family's place of abode. Burial registers show date, name, age and place of abode. Marriages had already been entered into a separate register, usually pre-printed, from 1754. Before 1813 it can be a bit hit and miss as to what you get in a baptism or burial register. Very generally though, the further back you go the more likely it is that the mother's name will not be recorded, though in my experience, and perhaps I've been lucky, that's usually only happened as I've got back to the late 1600s early 1700s. Some incumbants packed their registers out with all sorts of details including dates of birth, mother's maiden name and the names of the child's grandparents, so the early registers can actually be more informative than the standard ones after 1813. That's the big advantage of visiting the record office and looking at the original - you never know what you'll find. Plus, there are many other records there that you can make use of at the same time. Carole

Read up as much as you can about Welsh research, becasue there are particular problems. Your ancestors may have been nonconformist, the records may be in Welsh, and surnames only became fixed in the 1800s. Good luck! Brenda

Start with some searches on the IGI. It might give you some clues but treat it with care and be very suspicious of any Member's Submissions as these can very dodgy. Try searching using Hugh Wallis's website. URL below but GenesReunited will probably mangle it up. http : // freepages . genealogy . rootsweb . com / ~ hughwallis / IGIBatchNumbers . htm # Page Each set of records has a Batch Number so by searching on a surname in a particular church or set of records then you can often find a whole family group. Try and check on the films of the originals when you get chance. Have a look at Family History Society websites for the area and see if they sell any copies of parish registers. Often you can get fiches with an index of baptisms, marriages and burials. These are not too expensive and you can always take into a local library if you do not have a fiche reader. Obviously if you live near the area you can just go to a local library and view their copies. There will be a LDS FRC somewhere near you. For a modest charge they will get hold of the films so you look at them there. Martin jmb @ uwb . org . uk

Jonathan I don't know if this would be helpful as you are searching relatively popular names, but some Family history societies have their own indexes and will do searches for you - you'd still need to check with the original register, but it would help to define which parish. Try googling to find the FHS(s) you need. They may have a website with search details. I used Bucks FHs recently and for a few £ I found the marriage I had been searching for plus a couple of others into the bargain! nell

Hi As you go back in time, there are some eras when the Registers would have been written up in Latin - mainly (recalling looking through Fincham's Registers) when the country got a bit Catholic in its leanings. It's worth making sure you can recognise the Latin versions of critical words (mother, father, son, daughter etc - remembering that Latin grammar means words change endings according to their place in the sentence - like Welsh ones do, but without the hazard of first letters changing) and some likely names, so that it's easier to transcribe - starting from a good idea of what you might be looking at! I believe that there are some aids to interpretation on the Docs Online website (a number of the legal docs would have been in Latin). Might be worth checking there first when you get to that sort of stage. Christine