City Ark

[Elaine ..Spain]

I get so frustrated with this site - never quite sure what I should be doing or how I should search it.
Are there any simple instructions on the site as to how to search - I've been going round in circles for ages! :o

[WendyPusey]

I found that too Elaine. Doesn't look as if you can get on there at the moment though. Just a blank screen.

You need to click on Parish Records Online and then scroll down to the bottom and choose the parish you want. This will bring up the records in that area and you the choose the church you want. Once this page has loaded you can scroll down until you find what you are looking for. Make sure it has "View Image" above the one you want. Then the list of images will be displayed and you click on the one you want.


Does that help?

[Elaine ..Spain]

Thanks Wendy - yes that does help!
I was clicking on Parish Records Onine, which I thought was the right way, but just getting a blank page!
Obviously something wrong with the site at the moment - I'll try again later.

[Christine in Herts]

This has happened before. They get their experts onto it to sort it out as quickly as they can.

As for how to search... I've just tweaked this from something I set up ages ago, so I think it's about right:
If you are lucky enough to have ancestors who were married in Rochester (Kent) Deanery, you might find the image of their original Parish Register entry (with original signatures) on Cityark - Home

It's not terribly user-friendly in the way it's laid out (improved since I first set this page up!), but you'd need to follow the ‘Parish Registers online’ link in the left-hand menu bar.

Then you scroll down the page to where there's lots of stuff in bold and see if you can find a likely church whose registers have been 'done'. They are listed in alpha order.

If you click on the church name, you get a long list of registers for which there are images – with links.

You then get a long list of numbered images - without any description of what's in them (dates would have been useful!). The first few are usually the header-pages - after that you just have to jump about, noting which ones you've looked at (you can't rely on the links changing colour, unfortunately), to narrow down to the one you want. If you are noting the image numbers, it might be worth noting the dates they cover at the same time – in case you ever need to go back! If you use Excel, you can copy & paste the list of images and they appear in a column of cells. Then you can add the info against the ones you've looked at.

Unless you have very good grounds for guessing whereabouts the target date will be in the list, the scientific way to look for a particular date is
1] to go for the middle: you’ve hit your target? Or the target date is earlier or later.
2] If you didn’t get a hit, go for half way between the 1st attempt and the end which is earlier or later, according to what you need: Now you’ve hit your target? Or the target date is earlier or later.
3] Repeat the process, within the half-size bounds of your new attempt and the previous attempt(s) or the start/finish.

Watch out! - both sides of the book - even and odd pages - are on the same image, so don't forget to scroll across or you'll miss half the entries.

I also have an Excel workbook where I've got the details of the searches I've already done, so that I can avoid doubling up on things. By the same token, that might be useful for someone else?

Christine

[Elaine ..Spain]

Thanks Christine. I'll try out your instructions when the site is back up and running.

[petesout]

Hi all I am a newbie to this site but thought i'dm let you know that I telephoned cityark and they are working to rectify the fault and should be up and running again next week
Pete

[Elaine ..Spain]

Thanks Pete and welcome to FTF.