Hi
I'll soon be getting to the point where I have exhausted most of the available data in the censuses and civil registration of BMD, so I need to move on to parish registers and other sources. I subscribe to Findmypast which has been excellent so far, but seems limited in its coverage of Shropshire parish records.
Given that I live well outside the county, what's the best way of getting access to good records? Are there comprehensive CDs available commercially, or is there a plan for getting more parish records online in the near future.
Also, the problem of getting a nil return on FMP means I'm never sure whether the records don't exist, whether or not they have been transcribed or whether they have been transcribed but aren't available on FMP.
Any help or advice greatly appreciated.
Mike
Thank you for that extremely helpful answer, Mike. I'll check all those links and see whether "my" parishes have been put on CD. If microfiche turns out to be the only answer, does that mean investing in a microfiche reader or is there some way of doing this digitally?
Best wishes
Mike
I've had a look at the lists and it's not great news for me! The parishes I have connections with (so far) are Loppington, Ruyton XI towns, Baschurch, Worthen and Wem, whereas most of the available records seem to be South Shropshire. I'll keep my eyes open though, so thanks for the help.
Mike
Mike (Jones) has given an opportunity to make the point that no serious student of family history of Shropshire can be without a copy of Shropshire Archives' two lists of their holdings of (a) C of E; and (b) NC and RC registers.
Without such (or the Shropshire section of the National Index of Parish Registers) it is impossible to know of late starts or significant gaps - either for all or for some ceremonies; and for some it is just too easy to "join up the dots" from entries in the IGI without concern for the pitfalls of "black holes". The National Index is in any event needed for coverage by Bishops' Transcripts which fill some gaps.
It is of course possible to look at the LDS holdings of films (using the Library icon on an IGI page) - but these make no allowances for gaps.
The two lists used to be available in pdf form on the Archives' home page in Shropshire Council's website; but in transferring Archives from "Leisure and Culture" to "Education" they seem to have been lost.
An e-mail request to archives@shropshire.gov.uk might supply them. I can forward them via webmaster or other intermediary with access to Mike's e-address.
As regards Mike's list of registers, he is indeed stuck with visits to Archives to see fiches or manuscrit transcripts for Baschuch and Loppington. And, by the way, West Felton is not covered by IGI before 1813.
Hello Mike
Baschurch was never printed but there is an indexed transcript 1600-1812 at Shropshire Archives.
Loppington was never printed but there is a transcript (Bap 1654-1859 Indexed and Marrs 1813-1841) at Shropshire Archives.
Ruyton-XI-Towns is available on CD - I think it is as an individual parish from S&N
Wem is included in the S&G Set 2
Worthen was printed but I am not aware of any other source.
As for using microfiche the choices are to buy a reader or borrow one or borrow the use of one somewhere like a library or archive office. If you have access to any other type of magnifier with a magnification of about x40 then you may be able to use that.
A link to the lists referred to by Martyn in the message above will be found on this page.
Scroll down to near the bottom of the page where there are four links to PDF files. If you are using Firefox you may have a problem with them for reasons which I can't understand.
Mike
Thanks again for such a detailed answer, which was just what I needed.
Mike
As a new member can I say thank you. So much information on this one posting it has enabled me to find at least two members of my family - MEYRICK and GOODMAN. What a fantastic source is Mel Lockie's site. I will be visiting it again - not so late at night.
As I do not live in the Shropshire area it has been difficult for me to search earlier than 1841 which was quite easy (spelling of MEYRICK is often MERRICK) now it's trying to get to see parish records.
Thanks again
Thank you as well the information is very informative of the above.
I do have a number of microfiche I bought them to use on my dads, he no longer has his now so it may a trip to the libary to recheck them for information I am missing.
Again like others have said sadly the areas which I am researching is very limited, Hope, Snailbeach, Stipperstones, Shelve and Wentnor are not available yet on find my past
Is any of the above in printed format? or is it purcashing the microfiche again?
Thanks
Fiona
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Hello Mike
About half of the ancient Shropshire Parishes were transcribed and indexed by the former Shropshire Parish Register Society from the beginning of each register until at least 1812 and in a few cases as late as 1837-40. These transcripts were all printed in booklets about a hundred years ago and whilst a few originals become available on the second hand book market a much cheaper option is to buy microfiche copies of them from Shropshire Family History Society. Under Shop (above right) you will find Shropshire FHS Publications Catalogue which is mainly arranged in parish order.
A substantial number of parishes have been scanned and OCR'd then carefully checked and are freely available on Mel Lockie's excellent site. A few other parishes may be found through search engines.
In addition to the above some of the printed registers have been scanned and put on CD's, some of which are machine searchable and some which you need to use the original index and then browse through. Anguline produce CDs of individual parishes and S&N Genealogy produce sets of parishes on a single CD - see the panel on the left of their screen.
There is little doubt that Shropshire documents are going to become available on the Internet in the future but at the moment I don't think anyone knows the time scale (several months to a few years) and as yet we don't know which of the commercial companies will be hosting the data.
Mike