Family search v SEAX

[Happy Time Traveller]

Hi
I know nothing beats seeing the original, but if I can't find someone on the Family Search
Essex Parish Registers index, is there much point paying to use SEAX to trawl through the actual parish records?

I have tried every way of spelling their name and wild cards.
thanks

[rosie99]

Have you tried asking on here 

Familysearch is far from complete and also contains submitted entries which are not to be 'trusted'
I know where I would rather be looking -SEAX

Rosie

[nannyj]

SEAX is way way better!

I find you need to have google maps up on a separate tab as then you can trawl round the local parishes if you don't find what you were looking for in one parish. It's a bit more time consuming than family search as you can't search by name and just have to read all the parish records but has far more comprehensive records and there's something about looking at the original. Some of the marriage signatures make me realise how proud people must have been to be able to write their own name, however scrawled it is, as so many just left their 'mark'.

I've gone from a one day sub, to a one month, to six months and now I'm on a yearly subscription. I have found masses and masses of family on it.

One snag: no nonconformist baptisms ... Which one whole section of my family seem to be!

[helvissa]

SEAX is very addictive!!! 

I use it with http://maps.familysearch.org/ - this is very useful for finding contiguous parishes. So you look in one place, can't find the person you hoped to, but then if you look it up on the map here, you can see which other parishes are nearby. I've printed off Tendring and Lexden Hundreds and stuck them on my wall for quick reference!

There are also other sources of transcribed parish registers beyond Family Search. Essex Society for Family History has CDs for sale for certain parishes, starting from 1813 (although they start at 1751 for Colchester - I've found the Colchester CDs VERY useful). And I know everyone's probably sick of me mentioning it, but do have a look at FreeREG - I've been transcribing lots of Tendring and Lexden parishes, and they're on my website too (click the house button under my userpic). And there's lots of other people transcribing as well for FreeREG across other bits of Essex, but make sure you check the coverage page to see what's what (it's far from complete).

You might also want to have a look at Dusty Docs, which aims to show coverage of free transcriptions across the UK.

The thing to bear in mind with transcriptions is, with the best will in the world, errors do creep in. So use them as a guide and always refer to the original. This is so easy now with all the parishes scanned on SEAX.

[findem]

SEAX has my vote every time.

There is a but though, I always search on transcripts on sites such as Family Search, Free Reg and other transcripts first, then if I find what I'm looking for I then go to SEAX to verify the transcript details.  If nothing is found on transcripts then it's a search on SEAX.

I'm very grateful to the people like Helvissa and their transcription work because if you can find what you're looking for on transcripts first it can save a lot of time.

Thanks for the mention of Dusty Docs I'd forgotten about that site, I'll have to give it a workout.

Regards.

[lizdb]

Always best to go through the original records. And for Essex SEAX allows you to do that online without going to the Record Office.  Familysearch is not complete and subject to someone else's interperatation of the records. Great for a starting place, especially for areas where the prs arent online and it is not convenient to get to the Local record office, but if you have ancestors in Essex and cant get to the Essex Record Office then the Only Way Is SEAX.

[Diblet]

Familysearch can be good for the odd pointers and clues but covers very little of Essex.

SEAX on the other hand is like digging into an enormous goldmine and has been worth every penny of subscription money. It's such a thrill discovering your family history yourself and in a lot of cases to come across unexpected extras too!