RootsChat.Com
England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Yorkshire (West Riding) => Topic started by: Marmaduke 123 on Wednesday 18 April 12 12:58 BST (UK)
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These have appeared today, actually due in May I think. They're not for beginners! I think a lot of detective work will be needed to find out exactly what a lot of them are, and where they are from.
Ancestry has provided a list of chapels etc with the WYAS references, but they don't appear on the actual records you get to see, just the name of the repository, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Calderdale etc.
I recognise one of mine whose abode is given as Sowood. It's a chapel record of her expulsion because of immorality in 1850. She's on the 1851 census unmarried with her mother and stepfather, with a one year old daughter. I can't tell at the moment which chapel it is though. I'll have to do some more exploring!
Anne
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Hi Anne: thanks for that - yet more Archbells found!!!!! Including my grandmother's marriage, although I do have her certificate but it is so good to see original signatures. All the search results do show the chapel, as far as I can see. Now all I have to do is find my grandfather's baptism - wow, more great fun to keep me out of mischief!! :-\
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Yes, some look pretty straightforward and show the chapel, others are rather obscure and difficult to identify. Maybe it's the earlier ones that are difficult?
Anne
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I think I've worked it out now!
If you just search by surname, the first results which come up are the ones which have little or no identifying information. Presumably they were not identified in the Archives either.
There are some real gems in the burials - copies of itemised bills with amounts for digging, removing headstone, extra earth etc. Others with exact locations of plots - 12" from near wall, 4 yards from wall to south etc.
Should keep me busy for a bit.
Anne
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Ah, well - I'm just not going to complain at all ;D ;D All contributions are gratefully accepted. I've just got marriages that I didn't know where they took place, a baptism of a child who I know was born at sea en route from South Africa to England which gives an address in Leeds at a precise moment - wonderful stuff :-*
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This collection was originally expected to be released at the end of 2011 [source: old announcement on the WYAS website]. When April rolled around I thought Ancestry would be devoting all of its resources to transcribing the 1940 census, resulting in further delays to the release of this collection. Guess not -- this collection was released today. Coincidentally(?), the 1940 indexing status was today updated for the first time in ten days (and Washington DC is still the only "state" in the process of being transcribed)!
My initial impression: the 'Parish' column in the search results is currently not very helpful. Numerous parishes are listed as "The Wesleyan Chapel" or variants thereof. Determining which Wesleyan chapel requires previewing the record and cross-referencing the reel and reference numbers with the information here (http://search.ancestry.com/search/dbextra.aspx?dbid=2268 ). Ancestry's search routine should be doing this cross-reference lookup programmatically!
Also, the collection appears incomplete; compare the above list to http://www.archives.wyjs.org.uk/documents/archives/Collections%20Guide%202.pdf . Are there additional records on the way?
Glad (part of) the collection has finally been released; a bit disappointed so far with the quality of the search results; curious about how this project was managed.
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Ancestry's list of chapels in this collection certainly seems to confirm that it is incomplete. For instance only three chapels in the whole Barnsley area - Ardsley, Hoyland Common (both listed as Wakefield) and Penistone (listed as Kirklees) and very few for Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster. Or is Ancestry working on the new West Yorkshire, rather than the old West Ridung? If so, presumably the above three South Yorks places have been included by mistake. That said, the more records added, the better, and hopefully others will follow.
Sam.
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Hi,
The following is something I picked up on another site pertaining to this topic that I thought might be useful to someone:
"All Saints, Crofton
A member of the Guild of One Name Studies has just alerted us to a problem with the transcription on Ancestry for this parish.
The original entries are in Latin and the transcriber has not understood this at all. As an example they have transcribed
""Isabella Felice Johannis" as a name instead of as "Isabella daughter of Johannis Bloum" They have transcribed the Latin date for the next entry as a name for the previous entry."
In other words I think the date has been transcribed as the parent of Isabella"
I hope I haven't broken any rules/conventions in reproducing the above, it was open to all and sundry for viewing.
Regards.
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Thaks for the info i will look now. I had a field day when i bought a methodist cd for an area i was interested in.
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With regards to the new records, i went eagerly searching as many of my ancestors were weslyan. i found my gt grand uncles marriage in free methodist chapel, to find no signiture's or witness'ss??? very strange i thought? as acording to Yorkshire BMD they have it at Holbeck registered office?
i also asked Ancestry on FB page regarding any more due to come out, and they said not at the moment, as they are trying so hard with the final completion of the 1911 and US 1940 census's
Weenie
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Found some i can rule out.
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You might be interested to know that I have put together my own index to the West Yorkshire non conformist records (on ancestry.co.uk) at www.familiesrevealed.com/page10.htm
It provides a detailed list of the contents of each film, and the start and end image numbers for each section.
At present, it covers all the Kirklees films and about half of the Wakefield ones, which also include many chapels in the Kirklees area. You can use it either to find out what chapel is appearing in a search result (ie by matching the film number and image number against the index), or to locate any records that you might want to browse through.
Please let me know if anyone finds this useful - it might encourage me to index the rest of the Wakefield films!
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Thank you for this Digleymill, it should be very useful to me in sorting out some of the Ancestry mysteries.
I've really enjoyed looking at your website too.
Anne
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Thanks, I'm glad you like the website
Perhaps we should have a competition to find the best (?) example of ancestry's sloppy indexing! My favourite is a baptism on 25th Sept 1825, Holmfirth, where the indexer has merged two completely separate baptisms (Elizabeth Dickinson & Hannah Hirst) to create a new person Elizabeth Hannah Dickinson! Poor Hannah has disappeared as a result. And then there's those burials recorded as baptisms . . . . and the ones where the baptism or burial of (eg) John son of Joseph Tyas is indexed just as the burial of "John" (ie no surname.
It's also a bit annoying that burials at non conformist chapels tend to appear under the general category of "Birth, Baptisms & Christening", not "Death, Burial, Cemetery & Obituaries" if you try to narrow a search down.
On the plus side though, I've found some absolute gems of information by manually reading through some of the parish records, such as the burials at Holmfirth & Almondbury. This would have been impossible if the images weren't online.
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Ancestry's list of chapels in this collection certainly seems to confirm that it is incomplete. For instance only three chapels in the whole Barnsley area - Ardsley, Hoyland Common (both listed as Wakefield) and Penistone (listed as Kirklees) and very few for Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster. Or is Ancestry working on the new West Yorkshire, rather than the old West Ridung? If so, presumably the above three South Yorks places have been included by mistake. That said, the more records added, the better, and hopefully others will follow.
Sheffield archives have decided to go with Findmypast for the Anglican parishes and no decision has been made on the methodists. Sheffield & District FHS are now transcribing the non-conformist.
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Sheffield archives have decided to go with Findmypast for the Anglican parishes and no decision has been made on the methodists. Sheffield & District FHS are now transcribing the non-conformist.
Thanks for this information Tuppie. Is there a timescale for the Sheffield Archives material?
Anne
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Not at present...the legal team are in discussions with findmypast.
Tuppie
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FindMyPast are getting most of the work because of their connection with TNA. I still think that archives and FHS's are letting people down by using FindMyPast as their search engine is pathetic however FindMyPast do give money back to those who have transcribed the records which is why the FHS are using them.
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FindMyPast are getting most of the work because of their connection with TNA. I still think that archives and FHS's are letting people down by using FindMyPast as their search engine is pathetic
I do agree with this statement. Some people knock Ancestry, but in my opinion it is a more user friendly database than FindMyPast; I also think it's better value for money than FindMyPast. I first subscribed to Ancestry a number of years ago, then when FindMyPast exclusively had the 1911census I took a subscription with them. For two years I've subscribed to both sites and do use both, but use Ancestry far more than FindMyPast, FindMyPast has the edge for census address searches and does have some good parish register entries, however, as most of my ancestry lies in Yorkshire Ancestry's West Yorks records cover my own research requirements; I find I use FindMyPast mostly to help other researchers, not for my own FH, which moves me on to another point - Ancestry allow us to post census details etc to forums, FindMyPast's T&C's don't.
The Ancestry West Yorks nonconformist records are fantastic, and I cannot criticise Ancestry's indexing of them as I feel confident they were not easy records to index. Most nonconformist records resemble an event 'jotted down' unlike the traditional church records which were entered on individual forms (except the very early ones).
For me Ancestry offers great value for money. Yes, some of their transcriptions are laughable, but on the whole it's a great database, and I wouldn't want to be without it - warts and all!
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Libby,
Thanks to Ancestry I am not at a point where I can start searching the address of 2 people entitled to an estate that as been in the Bonavacantia lists for over 10 years. I today spent an hour in the local library using FindMyPast to see if this would help in my searches and not one of the so called hits on the search engine matched what I had asked of it. When FindMyPast have records on there that I am desperate for I may consider a subscription but until then I will stick with Ancestry which I have now been using for close to 7 years.
Once you know the nuances of Ancestry's transcriptions you can usually find what you need and I would love them to have an address search but we can't have everything
With regards to WY non conformist records have you seen the non Ancestry transcriptions on the Calverley website?
Rob
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I will stick with Ancestry which I have now been using for close to 7 years.
Once you know the nuances of Ancestry's transcriptions you can usually find what you need and I would love them to have an address search but we can't have everything
With regards to WY non conformist records have you seen the non Ancestry transcriptions on the Calverley website?
Rob
I too Rob have subscribed to Ancestry for over 7 years and will continue to do so. I agree that once acquainted with Ancestry's nuances searches aren't difficult to find. And you are so right, we can't have everything...............FindMyPast allow address searches but they don't always deliver, and with imagination it is possible to do an address search on Ancestry.
The Calverley website is impressive, but most of my ancestry lies in the Huddersfield/Halifax/Barnsley/Leeds City areas. Again, I find the Calverley website useful when trying to help others.
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You might be interested to know that I have put together my own index to the West Yorkshire non conformist records (on ancestry.co.uk) at www.familiesrevealed.com/page10.htm
Thanks so much; it's a great help. Very admirable.