Genealogy Chat

Many Victorian societies produced transcripts of interesting records. These were often circulated among a limited number of subscribers. Quality naturally varied. You will find the odd Cufsen (Cussen) or marriages without witnesses, indications of literacy, officiating ministers etc. Very often, the older IGI entries have been taken from these volumes, rather than the original registers. This is the source of many of the old London register entries. You need to treat printed transcripts with the same scepticism as you would with any source, but they will be useful if you find a name. What you cannot always tell, however, is how they treated the entries that they could not read. Are there a row of dots, or did they just ignore them?

Not sure which records you're looking at. Archive CD Books does have pdf CDs of the Phillimore marriage transcriptions, for instance. I haven't seen that they have copies of actual Parish Registers - but that could be just that they are from counties I haven't been after. My understanding of the ArchiveCDBooks set-up is that the money raised is largely ploughed back into the preservation of the old books being filmed - enabling proper conservation such as appropriate re-binding, where needed. I have bought a number of CDs from the site and always been pleased with the result. I managed to catch the recent offer which, exceptionally, included census CDs, so I got a number of 1841 copies of relevance. They can't make invisible records visible, but they do use very high-resolution images, so you can get a very high magnification without loss of clarity. Christine PS - just realised - I missed out the critical bit - they make their own images from the original source records, which could be the PRs or, in the first case I mentioned, a later transcription, like Phillimore's, or the marriage licence listings.

Giles, I think the point may be that the Victorian books are actually transcripts of the records, so much easier for you to read.

Jennifer I have used both Parish Register AND Bishops Transcripts. My experience has been that the BTs appear to have been written up 'all at once', i.e. once yearly. And they do not include the juicy bits in the margin. I have found some entries to be missing in the BTs, not copied from the PRs. However, I do agree that in the pursuit of excellence, ALL possible sources should be searched - but I wouldnt BUY BTs, whereas I might buy the PR. Olde Crone

I cannot agree with with Olde Crone about discounting Bishops Transcripts, these were copies of the parish registers that the incumbent was supposed to send to the Bishop periodically. It was not unknown for the Cleric to to enter baptispms and burials in his own notebook, then enter the details into the PRs at a later date, sometimes entries can be found in BTs that are missing from the PRs, where BTs exist they should always be consulted along with the PRs. Jennifer.

Giles, if you would prefer to buy images of the original registers several county records offices do sell them, usually on microfiche. Come to think of it that's another reason for not allowing a commercial publisher to copy them - the CRO is responsible for caring for the original registers and is able to produce some income towards the cost by selling its own copies. Also I believe even the CRO cannot produce or sell these copies without the permission of the church officials.

You'd have to ask CDbooks that question! I might guess its to do with cost or copyright but that IS only a guess.

Giles A wild guess would be that Victorian source books are probably out of copyright, whereas filmed stuff is firmly IN copyright. Olde Crone

I believe the original parish registers are lodged with the County Records Office but just imagine how tattered they would be if we all demanded to see them. Heather

Judith, Why would Archive CD Books use Victorian books as their sources, rather than film/fiche?

Oh dear, this is worrying. I've just ordered a whole load. I'd assumed (never assume anything......) that these CDs are films of the orignals. I do hope they are. I'll soon find out, they're due any day now. Jan xx

Back in late Victorian times people got interested in genealogy and, in the absence of the internet and scanning facilities!, laboriously transcribed parish registers, whether in long hand or typescript. Some of these people went on to print and bind their transcripts. Usually if such a book has been produced you will find copies in the appropriate county records office and at the Society of Genealogists library. I guess CDbooks have managed to get permission to scan some of these and sell them on CD.

Giles I don't quite understand it either, but my experience has been this: I use filmed copies of Parish Registers, courtesy of the LDS. These are films of the original Parish Registers (I never bother with Print-outs, Bishops Transcripts or Transcripts of any kind - these are not Primary Source Documents and are therefore liable to mistakes in transcription and even in interpretation (Baps being mistaken for burials for instance). As you are unlikely to ever be able to actually handle an old Parish Register yourself, then filmed copies are the next best thing. You mention 'transcriptions' - I wouldn't bother unless I could not locate the original Parish Register Film. 'Only two books ever made' - this is either a bit of flim-flam, lots of Churches/Chapels only ever made ONE Parish Register - or, we are talking about something completely different, perhaps a Vicar's life work, copying out the Parish Register and adding useful (or not) reminiscences? Are you sure you need to BUY the Parish Register? Much cheaper to go to your nearest LDS and look at it there, they have photocopying facilities too. Hope someone else can help you! Olde Crone

I'm really having trouble understanding the concept of Parish Registers published in books. There's a website called Archive CD Books, showing transcripts available on CD-ROM with photographs of 'rare books' and statements like 'there were only ever 2 volumes made' etc. I don't quite understand this. I assumed the CDs would be based on the preserved film/fiche sources? What's the significance of a book in regards to Parish Registers? Are parish records available in libraries or something in book form? I have a book on Family History, but the section on parish registers only briefly mentions books in the same context as CD-ROMS. Could somebody kindly explain?