Genealogy Chat

Unless you are really fortunate, parish registers may not provide enough information to construct a family tree: Baptism records rarely give mother's maiden name Marriage records very rarely give parents name Burial records before 1812 rarely show age. There are lots of other records which can help identify a particular family, but these are usually in the relevant record office. Find out as much as you can online, but it is really time to start persuading your family that they'd really like to holiday in some unusual places. If you can't travel it might be worthwhile finding out what projects are going on in your local area. Looking at land tax assessments or poor law records or wills would give you a feel for the sort of records that you'll need to look at in the future.

Sorry to butt in but thanks. You pick up such good tips on this site by having a 'wander' through the requests. Michaela

Try www(.)dorset-opc(.)com (remove brackets). This is a site which local enumerators list Parish records pre 1837. At the bottom of the Home page are links to Six other diverse counties on line , and another Seven are in the Process of being set up. There is also contact information Regards Jane

Nicola Civil registration of births, marriages and deaths began 1st July 1837, so the first available quarter and year to search is Sep 1837. Before that, you can't usually find births or deaths, but you can find baptisms and burials in the parish baptisms and burials registers. There are a lot of baptism and marriage entries on the IGI [International Genealogical Index] on www.familysearch.org You can find out which parishes are covered and for what years by googling 'Hugh Wallis batch numbers'. If you click on a batch number you want, it will take you to the familysearch site. C batch numbers are baptisms, Ms are marriages. You can see the whole batch, or you can put in the surname you want. If its not on the familysearch site, you might find it on Family History Online. This is a paying site, so you should click on their list of databases and check whether they have the area you want and the dates you want FIRST. Failing that, some local history societies have transcripts which they will search for a few £. If none of the above helps, you will need to book a trip to the relevant county records office which has parish registers, or the Society of Genealogists Library in London, which has a large collection. You have to pay to use the library, but not the records office. BUT CHECK THAT THEY HAVE WHAT YOU WANT FIRST. nell

my family tree is finding ancestors in the north, east, south and west and I am pretty much stuck now as I do not know how to look up birth, marriage or death records pre - 1837 when they were officially recorded. How do I look them up when I live in the north east and want to search many different counties? Any advice would be appreciated...... Thanks, Nicola