* Reliance on subscription sites FMP, Ancestry etc.

[Baboon281]

I took "gowermick" suggestions and tried FamilySearch. What a good surprise lots of stuff on there. By chance I came across a webinar about to start and after an hour had learnt loads. Thumbs up for Family Search.

[David Potter]

Hi Rocksrock

Thanks for the reply - I'll take another more detailed look see and try to figure why it does not find what I know is correct. Thanks for the update. And perhaps try another proven example.

David

[Gowermick]

Rocksrock,
You'll be pleased to know that your understanding of Mormons and Lancashire parish registers is incorrect, ( I have just been browsing Warrington's St Elphins, parish baptism register for 1827 on FamilySearch)! What you may find, however, is that they are not indexed, and so not available via the usual search record function.

For those films that they haven't got round to indexing, you'll find they may available to browse!

e.g. To find the above Warrington images, Goto Search/Catalog, type Warrington, select 'on-line' for where to search and go.

From the list of results, select Church records, and you will be presented with a list of entries for the churches in Warrington whose records they hold.
Select the church and period you are interested in, and you will be presented with another list, of the films they hold for that entry.
1. If an entry in this list shows a magnifying glass, it means it has been indexed and is searchable.
2. If it just shows a camera icon, it means thay have images, but they have not been indexed/transcribed. Howevr, if you are logged in as a registered user, a lot of these entries can be browsed, whilst others have restricted availabilty!
3. If it shows a film roll, it is only avaialable on microfiche, viewable at an LDS research centre.

I have found this facility very useful, and to be honest, only discovered it myself a couple of months ago.

Good hunting!

[NickWalker]

Rocksrock,
You'll be pleased to know that your understanding of Mormons and Lancashire parish registers is incorrect, ( I have just been browsing Warrington's St Elphins, parish baptism register for 1827 on FamilySearch)! What you may find, however, is that they are not indexed, and so not available via the usual search record function.

In case you weren't aware of it, the Warrington St Elphin registers are available as part of the excellent Lancashire OPC website, which is another brilliant example of a free resource if you have Lancashire family to research.

Cheers

Nick

[Gowermick]

Nick,
Yes I was aware of the OPC transcriptions, but thankfully, FamilySearch has the actual Images!

I'm a lot more comfortable seeing the actual image - I never trust other peoples eyesight, especially when it's done by OCR!

[rocksrock]

@Gowernick,

Well that is interesting, as the source of my information was the Mormon folk who have their London "Centre" at National Archives (well they did when I was last there about a year ago.)

Perhaps it is only part of the Lancashire data that is of BT origin. I will ask again next time I am there. Meanwhile if I find rels. near Warrington I know where to look - thank you!

[rocksrock]

@Gowernick

I've also just realised that Warrington these days is Cheshire.......................if you want to search for BMDs in Warrington using UKBMD you will need the CheshireBMD site not the Lancashire site!

[davidm_uk]

Related to FamilySearch the following two website may be of use if you want to search all of the entries in a particular batch, the batch being a type of record (eg. baptism, marriage), for a particular place (eg. parish, village) and for a given period (eg. 1833-1886).

http://www.archersoftware.co.uk/igi/
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.anc ... s.htm#Page

Having found the batch number(s) of potential interest just enter them one at a time into the FS to list all of the people. I've found many people this way, particularly where the name has been mistranscribed and a normal FS search hasn't found it, or if I'm looking for other possible family members in the same village.

The above websites give ideas on how to use batch numbers.

[AdrianBruce]

Re the Hugh Wallis and Archer Software sites - there are increasing numbers of parishes that don't appear in that list as they are being digitised without batch numbers. Very much depends on your area.

[victor]

Sadly the excellent Hugh Wallis site is not as it used to be due to the LDS changing things. I used to download details directly onto the software which converted the details to an Excel sheet. This was no longer possible.

Well it was no longer possible years ago when I found things didn't work anymore but since then Hugh Wallis has done some changes so may be I am out of date. If there is something new and it works again I will look into it

Victor

[willowherb]

Lancashire OPC transcriptions are not done by OCR , but by volunteers reading the films of the actual records.

One of the beauties of Lan OPC is that if you have a query you can contact the parish co-ordinator directly who will check the original for you and updates will be made when an error is found.