Familiar with parish records?

[djmontgomery]

hello everyone
I'm new to this forum so please bear with me.
I have recently begun a new project with the Church of England to make better use of the Church's vast archives of historical records. As you're probably aware, each parish generally owns and keeps its own records which of course makes life a bit challenging for genealogical research. What we're trying to do is to begin centralizing a process for getting parish records online and searchable, with a church goal of reconnecting people with their communities and historic family churches.

Anyhow - what I'm doing at the moment is identifying 'pilot' parishes and deaneries we could work with as we begin the project.
To that end, I thought I would simply throw a line out on this forum. If you are into this whole subject of genealogy and particularly the history of your local parish records, I'd love to hear from you. Particularly if you are in Winchester, Chichester, London or Guildford dioceses. But really anywhere in the country would be good to hear from.

Feel free to PM me to connect or ask me anything more.
Best wishes to all,
Darren M

[dawnsh]

Hi Darren

Welcome to Rootschat 

With regards to London & most probably Guildford, you'll find that Ancestry & FindmyPast have already put a vast amount of information online and are continuing to work on other things.

The registers deposited for safe-keeping at the London Metropolitan Archives are on Ancestry

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/group/london_met_archives

The registers deposited for safe-keeping at the City of Westminster Archives are on FindMyPast

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/search-all-uk-records/special-collections/the-westminster-collection

and the registers deposited at the Surrey History Centre are also online at Ancestry

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/CardCatalog.aspx#ccat=hc=25&dbSort=1&sbo=1&title=surrey&keyword=&

Dawn

[djmontgomery]

thanks Dawn 
Yes I know those companies have been piecing together parish records as you describe.  It's a bit of a piecemeal effort so far, though they've certainly put some big archives online.
However, there is still a huge untapped quantity in churches round the country.  I'm in contact with FindMyPast and soon Ancestry about our work, hope ultimately to partner with a company like that and gradually build a much more comprehensive centralized resource by defining the process for local parishes to get their records online.  Might take some time but we'd like to get there so the whole church and community can benefit  

cheers
Darren
Special Project Director, CofE (Busbridge & Hambledon)

Hi Darren

Welcome to Rootschat 

With regards to London & most probably Guildford, you'll find that Ancestry & FindmyPast have already put a vast amount of information online and are continuing to work on other things.

The registers deposited for safe-keeping at the London Metropolitan Archives are on Ancestry

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/group/london_met_archives

The registers deposited for safe-keeping at the City of Westminster Archives are on FindMyPast

http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/search-all-uk-records/special-collections/the-westminster-collection

and the registers deposited at the Surrey History Centre are also online at Ancestry

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/CardCatalog.aspx#ccat=hc=25&dbSort=1&sbo=1&title=surrey&keyword=&

Dawn

[mortlock62]

Hello Darren,

I am fairly new to researching my family and would be absolutely lost without parish registers. They are invaluable in unsnarling people with the same name....happens a lot in my family and following the women in my tree. I also often find little notes that didn't make it to the indexes or official documents that solve a problem or at least give me another clue.....and when I find a register online that I can view the actual document and see the handwriting of my ancestor from 200 years ago, well that is thrilling. It helps make an emotional connection with that person to me and that is really what this is all about for all of us.

I applaud your efforts and encourage you to get going!

Dee
Portland, OR, USA

P.S. My family research is centered in Cambridgeshire and I buy my registers from parishchest.com

[andycand]

Hi Darren

Out of interest is this a project originating from the C of E or did you approach them about it? The reason I ask is you say that each parish generally owns and keeps its own records but the majority of records (apart from ones still in use) are deposited in various County/Diocese Archives and it is usually these Archives that enter into discussions with or are approached by online websites. Have you contacted the various Diocese Archives?

Andy

[youngtug]

Is this you?  http://www.bhcgodalming.org/the-history-project/

[jim1]

My understanding is that Parish Records are deposited at various County Archives who by & large have contracts with one or other of the big online Genealogy Co's & as the records are owned by the C of E they would have to be co-partners so I'm not sure how the C of E go about releasing the whole collection to a third party for digitalization for online access without being in breach of contract.
Maybe you can give us your thoughts on that.

jim

[weste]

Staffordshire archives are in process of some of their registers digitised , not sure but I think it's find my past. Certain registers are not being done such as non conformist I do know but I think some of the c of  e ones are n't also.

[Liz_in_Sussex]

  Those of us with Sussex (Chichester Diocese) ancestors are incredibly fortunate to have the Sussex Family History Group http://www.sfhg.org.uk which has already made available to members online many (most) of the parish registers that have been deposited at WSRO or ESRO. 

Liz