Genealogy Chat

Hallo Sue it all depends. Pallots is just an index, but many of the parish registers from which its entries were taken have been destroyed, so Pallots may be the only record of a marriage you will find. In my limited experience, parish records before 1837 are usually quite brief. They give bride and groom's names, whether or not they are 'of this parish' and the name of the priest and the witnesses. Details such as fathers' names, occupations, addresses and ages only appear on marriage registers after the 1837 civil reg. came into force. If your relative came from a small village and had an unusual name, you might be able to go back quite a way in the registers. But if you have the usual John Jones and William Smiths, who married Eliza Brown and Mary Evans, and who came from outside of the county, then it can be difficult, if not impossible to know if you have the right person. For example, I have a William Moore in my tree. His baptism in Cambridge gives his parents names. I know from the census that these parents were not born in Suffolk. There are two couples who were from Norfolk villages on the IGI who are candidates, but I have no idea how I can prove it. And they may well not be on the IGI anyway. nell

Once you've found an entry in Pallot's or parish record transcripts with basic names and maybe a year date, is there any more info that people have found by going back to the original parish records then? I wondered about the effort made to go to a record office maybe only to re-read exactly what's already known. I'm starting to think about my trip next year and want to use my precious time in the UK wisely! Has anyone looked, for example, at the Norfolk AT/BT transcriptions website, and then found more in the actual Record Office that points to parents of the bride & groom etc? I'm trying to work out how people actually manage to get back beyond that 1837 hurdle accurately. Thanks. Sue (in NZ)