I searched Rootschat in case this duplicated anyone else's work but I couldn't find anything that really matched so I think I'll share my experience of this in case it helps others.
I have been looking for ages for a marriage in Essex and Suffolk. I was led in that direction by pretty clear clues which turned out to be the largest of red herrings. At last (thanks largely to Pauline Jackson)I think I have found the marriage in St George in the East in 1805. But I wanted to be sure and one way I thought I could get verification was by looking up the Land Tax assessment records for 1805-1807. I am not entirely sure that the verification is total but I just want to describe what I found:
(a) for one parish in St George in East I got a bound book for each year containing around 125 pages.
(b) each page in each book seemed to have been written by the same person in a very legible hand.
(c) each page listed surname and forename of freeholders/occupiers of premises and its street address
(d) the book was used as a device for calculating taxes and had therefore to be accurate. It was signed by 3 worthies that it was correctly calculated.
(e) most names were of males but there were some females (presumably well-off in their own right).
I found the names I was looking for.
Because this record was available at least as far back as 1805 (before any extant census records) it occurred to me that it could be a useful aid to anyone who wanted to narrow the search area for a 'brick wall'. It took me about an hour to skim through 125 pages which I think is a pretty good return compared with what I would have spent trawling through parish registers on the off chance.
I know this London parish may not be typical of all parishes and female 'brick walls' may not be susceptible to this approach.
Any thoughts anyone?
