Suffolk parish registers to go online?

[Trevor Rix]

Have you read all of the 115 posts in this topic? You may find that some of your thoughts already have answers and explanations.

Essex benefitted from the expertise and drive of a county archivist who moved to them from Medway where he set up CityArk and Medway Ancestors, together with some lottery funding I think. He completed a project that Essex had already started within a short timeframe.

Suffolk have so far not followed suit, and have done virtually nothing tangible that we can see. Dragging their heels - living in the tech dark ages.

Last I heard in July 2019, Suffolk are in discussions with FamilySearch to try and work out a way forward that is acceptable to both parties.

[jonwicken]

Thanks very much. I did read them all a while ago but forgotten! So thank you for the summary. 

[coombs]

FindMyPast has good resources for Suffolk marriages and burials, such as the Boyds Marriage Index and NBI/Suffolk Burial Index. It is lacking with baptismal records though but can be great for marriages and burials.

My great grandad came from Suffolk and moved to Essex, and many of my Essex ancestors descended from Suffolk people. FreeREG Suffolk records is getting better.

[Greensleeves]

I've said it before, and I'll say it yet again: I do wish Suffolk would get its act together and get this matter sorted.  If they can't afford to do it, then put it out to volunteer transcribers under projects such as Zooniverse or similar.  I fear I'll be long dead before I get a chance to see the PRs for many of my ancestors. 

However, as I think I might have posted previously, there are a few sites online where some dedicated and generous soul who has transcribed PRs for a particular parish has been good enough to also put them online.  The ones I've used particularly are the PRs for Rattlesden, and also Woolpit.  Another useful resource was Ray Long's Cosford Database which contained records of the parishes within the Cosford area of Suffolk.  Sadly, when Ray died, the site was closed down, and has yet to reappear.  However, it is still available via The Wayback Machine (web archive).  Some of it is broken now, but quite a lot of the data is still accessible:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080611133922/http://www.cosford-database.co.uk/

Regards
GS

[Trevor Rix]

Speaking for myself, it is not piecemeal indexes and transcriptions that I am after. I need access to high quality colour digital images of the original parish registers for the whole county at an affordable price.

The volunteer transcribers that you mention would need access to digital images to transcribe from. Something that is not possible right now because they do not exist. And such a project would be beyond the ability of just a few transcribers to complete the whole of the county within a few decades.

Conversely Ancestry and Findmypast have access to very large numbers of transcribers who by now are reasonably good at transcribing parish registers, at a fast pace, at an affordable price.

[Greensleeves]

Yes, obviously the records would need to be digitised for any project, regardless of who the transcribers were to be.  I mentioned the Zooniverse because they have undertaken numerous transcription projects, the one I was most involved being Shakespeare's World which involved the transcription of thousands of documents from the time of Shakespeare.  Another major project I was involved with was transcription of the digitised records from the Napoleonic Wars, which was undertaken through Heritage Helpers.  So it is obvious that there are plenty of ways of undertaking these projects; but they all start with the fact that the original records need to be digitised before transcription can take place.

As we don't have the Suffolk PRs online, then we have to take second best, and find out what IS available as compared to what is not.  I'm happy to use the Rattlesden PRs, for example, which are available now, rather than wait another ten or twenty years before Suffolk gets its act together.

I am fortunate that a lot of my Suffolk FT research was undertaken by my late uncle, who did his research in the days before the internet.  He travelled to parishes, gained access to the parish records, and transcribed 'on the hoof' so to speak.

If you're not happy with what's available online and are only content with 'high quality colour digital images', I fear you will be waiting a very long time....

[clairec666]

Anyone know anything about Essex's predicted or actual income from their site and how long it will take them to make the money back on what they spent setting it up?

The prices to view Essex records have risen dramatically since I first used SEAX. A day's subscription used to be £5, then it went up to £10, and more recently £20. I may be wrong, but I suspect they have not made enough money to cover the cost of digitisation, and have raised prices to attempt to break even.

This may put off Suffolk from attempting a similar project to Essex.

[Trevor Rix]

The annual subscription to SEAX/Essex Archives Online has not increased very much. I paid £85 in June 2019 for another year. As mentioned above, I think Essex may have received a lottery grant to partially fund their project. And Essex now receive a potentially significant new income stream from those that order images via the Ancestry indexes at £2.50 each.

Here is a quote by a Suffolk County Councillor from July 2018.

"I understand that the Essex model is different to the proposed Suffolk project as the Essex Record Office registers aren’t indexed at individual entry level and it still took 8 years to digitise the c600,000 images of Essex parish registers with dedicated staff and considerable support from their IT department.  I understand they are now exploring options with larger commercial players to index their images and market them to a global audience, which is the approach SRO have now confirmed."

[coombs]

John Pope's website has some Suffolk transcriptions. It has proved handy for my Dennington ancestors. Although nothing beats looking at originals. From 1754 onwards all marriages should have required 2 witnesses and sadly some transcriptions are from BT's or Phillimores which often (to save time when they were originally written out at the time) just give name and date of marriage and omit wits and status and even occupation. I am sure us serious researchers realise how fundamental witnesses are.

http://pope-genealogy.me.uk/suffolk/