Seven years ago the Online Parish Clerk program began in Cornwall. Since then similar projects have been established in Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, and Lancashire In Dec 2006 a project was undertaken for Somerset. The aim of the scheme is to further research in family, local, social and economic history by making freely available records relating to a parish.
The Somerset OPC project is currently focused on, but not restricted to the parishes within the Archdeaconry of Taunton. We are still very much in an evolutionary phase and our website and database at
wsom-opc.org.uk is growing steadily as new data is donated and volunteers come forward to adopt a parish as an Online Parish Clerk or OPC. Transciption of parish records is encourages but this is not essential to becoming an OPC.
A volunteer will find the work rewarding, it may help identify further sources for research and will generally add to your knowledge of parish life through the centuries. If you work on a parish where you have ancestors, you may well add to your knowledge of your own family links as a result of your efforts.
Are you interested in joining the team? If so, please contact me and I can give you further details. If you have transcriptions you would like to donate to the site, but feel unable/unwilling to be an OPC, please let us know. All donations of transcripts, photographs, articles and general historical information are very welcome.