Text 48, 104 rader
Skriven 2005-04-22 07:51:52 av Stephen Hayes (5:7106/20.0)
Ärende: SoG & Archive CD Books Co-operative Project plus a Happy Story!
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* Forwarded (from: GEN_BRITAIN) by Stephen Hayes using timEd/2 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from Rob Dewsall (8:8/2003) to All.
* Original dated: Thu Apr 21, 11:04

From: Rob Dewsall <rdewsall@archivecdbooks.org>

CDs of Church Marriage Registers 1538 to 1836


People researching their family history can now access the really old church
marriage registers at home on their own computers.

In a joint project with the Society of Genealogists, Archive CD Books have
digitised hundreds of old books and have made them available on CD. The books
were first published in the 1890s, when W P W Phillimore, one of the great
genealogists of the Victorian period, sent a team of people to village and town
churches around England to transcribe all of their old church marriage
registers.  Phillimore then published a series of county volumes of books, with
only 150 copies of each one being printed. Those old books are now extremely
rare, but of course, the Society of Genealogists owned a full set of them from
the time that they were first published.

The books were taken to the offices of Archive CD Books in Gloucestershire for
scanning, and they were all put onto a series of CDs each covering one county,
and the CDs are now obtainable from the Society of Genealogists and Archive CD
Books.

Finding your ancestors in the books is incredibly easy, as the CDs are fully
searchable. Just type in the surnames that you are looking for, and your
computer searches through the pages.  Church registers began in 1538, and where
those old registers have survived they are included. Some of the older
registers from some churches were lost in the mists of time, and therefore the
ones for your village church may only start in the 1600s.

The books contain a wealth of information.  Every marriage that took place in
the parish churches.  "William Barkham, labourer, & Mary Gravenor, widow - 21
April 1700".  "Lawrence Cooper, butcher, of the parish of St. Andrew's,
Holbourne, & Elizabeth Ambige, servant - 24 Oct 1700".  "Henry Longden,
cockman, & Sarah Edmunson, widow, both of the parish of Uxbridge - 18 Jan
1701".

The counties covered by the books (one CD for each county) include: Berkshire,
Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumberland, Derbyshire,
Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire,
Huntingdonshire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Middlesex, Norfolk,
Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Suffolk,
Warwickshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire and Yorkshire.

More information about the Society of Genealogists can be seen at
http://www.sog.org.uk,

and the lists of all parishes included in the books can be seen on the Archive
CD Books web site at

http://www.rod-neep.co.uk/books/registers.

Finally, the happy story....

The statement above that the SoG have a complete set of Phillimore's is not
entirely correct.  The original Leicestershire collection consisted of twelve
volumes and, sadly, volume 4 is missing from the Society's collection.

What to do?

Simple, borrow one.  So I called my contacts at the FRC and TNA..... neither of
them had a copy

Next stop Leicestershire Local Studies Library..... but we all know that "the
books *never* leave the office" don't we?

Well, I called Aubrey Stevenson at LLSL and explained the situation..... He
agreed to loan us the book, it duly arrived on my desk the very next day and it
has now been scanned and is available on CD

The SoG are incredibly pleased to have that volume on CD (they can now print
out the entire book for use in the Library).

Leicestershire Local Sudies Library are very happy too as they will have a
totally searchable CD set for use there.

An excellent example of several organisations working *together* to make
something happen.  Let's hope that we see more of this kind of thing happen.
Co-operative projects to make important material more freely available *work*
and work *well*

======================================================
The Archive CD Books Project exists to make reproductions of old books,
documents and maps available on CD to genealogists and historians, and to
co-operate with libraries, museums and record offices in providing money to
renovate old books in their collection, and to donate books to their
collections, where they will be preserved for future generations.
======================================================

Best wishes
--
Rob Dewsall
ARCHIVE CD BOOKS
Web : http://www.archivecdbooks.org.uk

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