I know this has been said a million times...

[Asa]

...but there is just no substitute for parish records. I can't often afford to buy them on disc and I don't often get time to sit in ROs as often as I like (which would be all the time) but I did yesterday.

I thought I had the one family fairly well covered except for their absence on the 1861 until I found their baptisms at St John Bethnal Green. Not only did these registers have the birth dates, proper addresses and godparents for almost all of the eight children I knew of but also for another seven children that I had no knowledge of because they all died young.

I suppose I might have eventually found out about these when mother's maiden name appears in the indices (if it ever does) but it was such a find. Apart from the bittersweetness of the discoveries, I came away a very happy bloke.

[Lynn The Forest Fan]

Well done Asa, it is always nice when looking at the PRs finds something you didn't expect

[Punchs mum]

I too have used Parish Records and found siblings of my maternal grandmother that have died in infancy that I knew nothing about. I think that it was probably never talk about as it was so common then to lose a child. Very sad.

Lesley

[Little Nell]

Hallo Asa - hope to bump into you again at the LMA when it reopens!!!

You're right. Of course some parish clerks/vicars/curates just gave bare details, but its very helpful to find one that provides more information. There were two couples with the same names with children being baptised at St Leonard's Shoreditch, but as the baptism entry included the father's occupation and family address it was easy to sort out the right family. This info isn't on the IGI.

Baptisms often give birthdates too - especially useful if the child wasn't baptised until it was a few years old.

As you say, it will give info about poor babies that were born and died between censuses and if it was in a populous registration district, only the baptism will confirm that the child/ren belonged to the same family.

Plus, there are often useful things scribbled in margins - I found that my gt gt grandmother Susanna Barnes, entry had this added ""The entries commencing on p.18 with Susanna dau of Mark & Ann Barnes and ending on p. 19 with Henry son of William & Ellen Paxton were taken from the impositions of the parents after the death of the late Mr Burrell [the curate] there having been no entry made during the current year since the 15th January at the time of my entering upon the curacy in November 1825. Thomas Beckwith, Curate".

[Asa]

Morning all: )

Nell, that's a nice little snippet isn't it. The LMA has re-opened - that's where I was yesterday. We are all squished down one end now with loads of new shiny pcs taking up the rest of the place, ready for the digitisation.


So much depends on who recorded things doesn't it. I've rarely come across godparents being recorded in 20 years of looking at PRs. Typically, the parents were godparents to many of their children so there weren't any earth shattering revelations as far as that went but the odd aunt and uncle cropped up too.

[Little Nell]

Asa

Oh gosh! Well I was at the LDS family history centre in Stevenage yesterday with Viv, or I could have been squished up with you!!!

Seriously, have they just got loads of new pcs or are there any other changes? And you were lucky with godparents - I've never seen baptism registers with them and they aren't named on the few baptism certificates I have.

[gloryer]

well I have just found 3 of my female SMITH marriages. Would have been a very expensive way if I had to order certificates. Luckily for me most of mine are on teh cityark website which has saved me many a certificate but taken up a lot of time searching.

[Asa]

Well done Gloryer but what's the cityark website?

Nell, it's just one great big room at the moment - all squared off and not finished by any means. The info/staff desk is in the same place with not yet quite filled bookshelves to the right of you and 30+ (?) pcs to the left of you And then in front of you at the back are the big grey cabinets with the microfilms in and behind that are all the readers. One really irritating thing is that you no longer have anywhere to put down the district folder indices down to get the film numbers! So there are loads of people dithering about in front of the (much smaller) shelves or crouched down in front of them. Given how busy it was, we could have done without the added nuisance lol. There are also (I think) only 24 spaces to look at manuscripts now.

Hope the lovely Viv is all right: )

[Sue from Southend]

I think I'll wait for the re-opening rush to die down before I venture to the LMA again. Are they anticipating this digitisation to go live soon then if they've put in extra PCs already?

[Asa]

It's nearly always that busy on a Saturday anyway, Sue. At it's worst from mid morning to early afternoon. It is all because of the digitisation - the catalogue is already done and I think the next phase is due to be done by April but I can't remember what that is - should say on the website. I will miss the microfilm when it's gone.

[gloryer]

cityark is a fabulous site for ancestors from Kent. Mainly around the Medway/Northfleet areas. They had a lottery grant to didgitise the parish records so although the baptisms dont give the mothers maiden names it has helped me no end with marriages giving the fathers names. I even have my own baptism register entry on there.

[Bee]

Sorry - what's LMA again?

Bee.

[Little Nell]

London Metropolitan Archives - the record office for Greater London (not including City of London which has archives at the Guildhall Library).

LMA is in Northampton Row, Clerkenwell, just round the corner from the Family Records Centre - which is due to move to Kew this year.

[Bee]

Thanks Nell.

[Christine in Herts]

This is the URL for the Medway CityArk site: Cityark - Home

I've spent loads of time in the site - generally looking for people in other folks' families! In the process I've built up a bit of an index to the images*. You need to do something because the images are split up by church, register-type, and date-band for the register. There may be dozens of images to hunt through with no clue as to where the dates fall in the list.

*It occurs to me...
Should we set a part of the Wiki to be a date-index to the CityArk images? Then we could all add to it as we acquired the info for ourselves, and we could make good use of other folks' digging. I think a full name-index might take up too much room.

Christine

[Olde Crone Holden]

You certainly can't beat parish registers.

Plodding through one lot I came across the Banns book - a very rare find! The Vicar had used this to actually record the marriage, with the witnesses signatures.

As each set of Banns and the subsequent marriage occupied one page to itself, all the guests at the wedding signed as witnesses - and put their relationship to the happy couple! There were eleven signatures on one and 12 on another (groom's mother signed twice in the excitement, lol). This was in 1784. I was very surprised to find that all these people could sign their names in a careful copperplate - they were farmers and ag labs.

All was revealed when I went further back, to 1703. There were several pages devoted to the fact that someone had left money to the parish, for the purpose of building a school, to which ALL children could go. And at the back of the register, the names of the children, their parents and where they lived and what they did, and how many times the child attended school.

You don't see ANY of this on the IGI and you also don't see the Vicar's little comments in the margin, such as

"His posthumous child SHE SAYS"

OC

[wulliam]

Thankyou so much for mentioning the Medway list - I'm busy hunting Northfleet and finding all sorts! Much appreciated!

[Little Nell]

Yes, the IGI doesn't give marriage witnesses.
I was chuffed when I found two gt gt aunties, who'd married within a month of eachother. Both had witnessed the other's wedding (I imagine they were bridesmaids for eachother). They must have been a close family as the eldest woman's daughter married one of the other's sons!

[Asa]

Thanks Gloryer and Christine - unfortunately for me it doesn't cover the few bits of Kent I have ancestors from.

OC, I found an entry last week for the daughter of Sarah and the late Thomas Gomm baptised 1st Jul 1816 and born 7th Jun 1816. Thomas had been buried 10th August 1815. I'm being charitable and thinking there may have been an error on the birthdate: )

[Little Nell]

Lol!