Non conformist registers

[Darksecretz]

I know that you can look at these online via BMD Registers site, but can you purchase the cd's anywhere at all?

have a couple of queries that I'd like to have a look at.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Julie

I think you would need to google for the specific church to find out if there are cds available. "Non conformist" covers every church/chapel which isn't C of E, so it's unlikely they'll ALL be on one CD.

OC

OC

[Darksecretz]

Thanks OC, I guess it'd be abit like the parish register cds I have then, for a specific place..

[margaretmarch]

Thanks OC, I guess it'd be abit like the parish register cds I have then, for a specific place..

The thing I found with non con records was that they weren't necessarily in the place or at the time you'de expect because the officials travelled about to do registers etc. so it may have been a while before an event was noted or maybe even a different place.

Margaret

[Olde Crone Holden]

Yes, I have found the same as Margaret. Methodist Circuit registers from the late 1600s, early 1700s, could cover several counties.

I found a missing baptism recorded in the circuit registers (which have been wrongly labelled as the records of a particular chapel in Yorkshire) for a man who I know would have been baptised in his own home in Lancashire when the circuit minister visited this particular village (several baptised the same day, then the minister moved on to the next village and so on).

You sometimes have to cast your net very wide when looking for noncon events.

OC

[kylejustin]

that's a very interesting point oc. i have non cons, methodists from yorks and have wondered.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Same with Bedfordshire/Hertfordshire Circuits too. Also many of the chapels which were in existence have long gone ... and I don't mean they have recently been turned into houses. The chapel in Bedfordshire where my rellies married cannot now be identified except by the name of the part of the village it was in.

Anne

[Darksecretz]

Yes, I have found the same as Margaret. Methodist Circuit registers from the late 1600s, early 1700s, could cover several counties.

I found a missing baptism recorded in the circuit registers (which have been wrongly labelled as the records of a particular chapel in Yorkshire) for a man who I know would have been baptised in his own home in Lancashire when the circuit minister visited this particular village (several baptised the same day, then the minister moved on to the next village and so on).

You sometimes have to cast your net very wide when looking for noncon events.

OC

I have found two children that were baptised in Derbyshire, but, also it shows them as being bapt in Leicestershire too, [Granted the places in question are not that far apart, but, struck me as odd that they were both recorded as being bapt in both places...]

I don't suppose that there is any way of narrowing the search results down any?? I mean for say the 'set' RG4_0696

[Janet]

The Dr Williams Library in London may be able to help you with your queries.

http://www.dwlib.co.uk/dwlib/family/index.html

Janet

[Olde Crone Holden]

You have to do a bit of detective work and try to identify the "mother" chapel. Mine were baptised in Lancashire but recorded in Yorkshire, presumably because that was where the travelling minister lived, or where his headquarters were.

So what you are looking at is very possibly the same event, which took place in Derbyshire but was recorded in the registers held at Leicestershire.

I know when I looked at the register and FINALLY read all the opening blurb (instead of just diving in to find the baptisms)it stated that the register was a collection of baptisms performed by a travelling minister on his circuit - which covered three counties, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Westmorland. There was no local recording of the event because there were no legitimate chapels in the area, as Anne describes above.

OC

[Darksecretz]

The Dr Williams Library in London may be able to help you with your queries.

http://www.dwlib.co.uk/dwlib/family/index.html

Janet

ah. thanks Janet, I'll have a read of that, and see if I can glean any extra info. :smilee:

You have to do a bit of detective work and try to identify the "mother" chapel. Mine were baptised in Lancashire but recorded in Yorkshire, presumably because that was where the travelling minister lived, or where his headquarters were.

So what you are looking at is very possibly the same event, which took place in Derbyshire but was recorded in the registers held at Leicestershire.

I know when I looked at the register and FINALLY read all the opening blurb (instead of just diving in to find the baptisms)it stated that the register was a collection of baptisms performed by a travelling minister on his circuit - which covered three counties, Lancashire, Yorkshire and Westmorland. There was no local recording of the event because there were no legitimate chapels in the area, as Anne describes above.

OC

I have this OC, just states when and where he was bapt, but on LDS I have found that he is said to be bapt at Whitwick..

[Mary from Italy]

It might be worth getting a sub to the Genealogist, which I believe has the Non-Con registers that are on the BMDRegisters site.

[Mary from Italy]

Does the image in #11 come from BMDRegisters? It doesn't say on the actual image that you posted where he was baptised.

I've just had a look at the BMDRegisters index, and the only Edward Holmes baptised in 1810 is listed as baptised in Leicestershire, not Derbyshire.

Smisby's a very small place, so it may not have had its own chapel or meeting house.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oooh, I'm getting VERY CROSS!

I have attempted to find out the title of RG 4 0696. The TNA won't allow me to search for this register (invalid search term) and as for Familysearch...what have they done with the library catalogue? Where has it gone???? It was such a useful resource, I can't believe they've withdrawn it.

EDIT - no they haven't, I was looking in the wrong place, blush blush. However you can no longer search using a register number.

OC

[Harrys mum]

I bought a sub to The Genealogist ages ago to get all my non-con records. the images are often beautiful with full lists of witnesses for briths and signatures. Some are just the hand written lists. It is a much cheaper way of doing it than buying each one fro the BMD reg site. The sub also lets you download wills, so I've really got my moneys worth.

I know alot of people bag the site, but it's my favourite and I've had Ancestry and FMP to compare.

[Harrys mum]

Just to add.................I've found very many non-con baptisms away from the parents parish.

[Mary from Italy]

I've just realised that if you click on the RG4 0887 link alongside Edward Holmes on BMDRegisters, it says "887: Register of Births and Baptisms at the Primitive Methodist Chapel of Whitwick, Leicestershire from 1797 to 1821".

So FamilySearch is correct.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Oh, well done Mary! Can you also find RG4 - 0696, please? Just to see how it is headed.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

I haven't found a way of searching for RG4 numbers on TNA either - do you know which county it's likely to be in? I may be able to find it that way.

[Mary from Italy]

Hmm. I thought I'd found a way of doing it, but it doesn't always work.

If you go to the TNA catalogue search:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/search.asp

and put the county in the Word or phrase box and RG4 in the Department or Series code box, that brings up a list of RG4 documents for that county.

Alternatively, you can put the name of a town in the Word or phrase box.

However, it didn't bring up everything for Whitwick (it brought up a different RG4 number with later baptisms), and when I searched for Leicestershire, the Whitwick RG4 0887 baptisms didn't appear, so they presumably aren't indexed in the Catalogue (which I had wrongly assumed was comprehensive).

However, if you can find the event you're interested in on the BMDRegisters site, you can click on the RG number to find out how it's headed.