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England (Counties as in 1851-1901) => England => Oxfordshire => Topic started by: california dreamin on Sunday 01 June 14 20:23 BST (UK)
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Hi
Every so often I like to dip into research on my family that hailed from Thame and Sydenham, Oxfordshire. I feel rather frustrated as OFHS seem to have to monopoly on any parish record information. Is there some other source that I may be missing? The OFHS website is very confusing about look ups etc. I can't really supply one particular name and date that I am interested in as I would to wade though many years of marriages, baptisms and deaths. Help...
There isn't anything tucked away on archives.org or google books is there? Thanks
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Hi california dreamin,
I have the same problem with Oxfordshire Births... my G/G/Grandfather William James WARREN puts on the 1881 and 1891 Censuses that he was Born in Oxford, St Giles in 1857. Problem is that I've never been able to find him there:-(
I too have spent ages wading through PR's etc, - with no success.
Best of Luck!
Romilly.
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Thanks for your reply - at least its not just me. I wish the OFHS would start to supply one of the large pay per view websites with some of this information. They would be assisting FAR more family historians and making FAR more money for their Society this way than selling CD's!
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I think the OFHS has just paid for all the PRs of Oxfordshire to be photographed & are negotiating with the major sites
Steve
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Hi OB,
Thanks that's fab new. Can't wait!
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I think the OFHS has just paid for all the PRs of Oxfordshire to be photographed & are negotiating with the major sites
Steve
Thanks for letting us know Steve.
Romilly.
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Extracted records for some Oxfordshire parishes can be found on the IGI. You can see a list at:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumbers/CountyOxford.htm#PageTitle
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Many thanks for this. I'm also in the same boat. ::) ::)
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Hi Pennie
Many thanks for the link. Will have a look.
Just wondering if someone might know where I can find a good map - also looking for tithe maps? I did look under the Rootschat links. Many of the Oxfordshire maps are rubbish. They look like a photo has been taken of a map on a teatowel ! :(
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I'm not sure about tithe maps (again Oxford a History Centre may hold them), but the 6' series of OS maps are available from the National Library of Scotland; I can't find the link at present, but it's easy to find
Steve
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Hi Steve
Thanks for that I'll have a look. At the moment I'm also on the hunt for a book called 'The History of Thame' by JH Brown and W Guest (1935) FH Castle. I have found the Bodlian Library have a copy (but live no where near). This isn't anything that has come under your radar? I have a feeling it was something quite specialised with a small print run. But lots of people seem to have used it as a reference for this town.
Thanks again
CD
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Not sure if these are any help to you
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~malcolm/genuki/big/eng/OXF/
http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/place_page.jsp?p_id=887
and
http://whipple.org/oxford/
http://www.freereg.org.uk/parishes/oxf.htm
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Thanks for those - yes some I have seen already. Will go through the Genuki pages. Specifically looking for information on Thame & Sydenham. Parish records, maps well anything really. All the parish information seems to be guarded by the OFHS ( though hopefully online soon!)
Thanks again
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Hi There
Why not purchase the transcript of the parishes you want to explore then you can go through them at your leasure & whatever format you choose to have them in they will be yours to keep & dip into whenever you feel the urge
All the very best
Phil
OFHS member 4711
ps all the prices are on the website
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Oxfordshire parishes map on the OFHS website:
http://searches.oxfordshirefhs.org.uk/pardata.html
Incidentally, if you think that researching in Oxfordshire (where all the parish registers have been transcribed and are available to purchase, and there are also county-wide baptism and marriage indexes) then try doing the same in a parish where mostly all you can do is look at poor-quality fiches of original parish registers at the county RO/libraries. I know which I prefer!!
Pennie
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Incidentally, if you think that researching in Oxfordshire (where all the parish registers have been transcribed and are available to purchase, and there are also county-wide baptism and marriage indexes) then try doing the same in a parish where mostly all you can do is look at poor-quality fiches of original parish registers at the county RO/libraries. I know which I prefer!!
Pennie
Hear, hear! I have Oxfordshire ancestors and am eternally grateful to Oxfordshire Family History Society and its members for their hard work in transcribing the parish registers (and a great deal of other material) and making it available to researchers.
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Your like me & love trawling through the old registers on film that I regard as a challenge to read (well some of them lol) & you cant beat it as even the best transcripts have errors on them. The reason I always recomend OFHS transcripts is that I have always found them to be very good & I live in Somerset with no car to my name so for my OXF research I rely on the very good transcripts that have been produced by OFHS
All the very best
Phil
OFHS member 4711
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Your like me & love trawling through the old registers on film that I regard as a challenge to read (well some of them lol) & you cant beat it as even the best transcripts have errors on them. The reason I always recomend OFHS transcripts is that I have always found them to be very good & I live in Somerset with no car to my name so for my OXF research I rely on the very good transcripts that have been produced by OFHS
All the very best
Phil
OFHS member 4711
It'll be even better when OFHS release the digitised images of the original registers online. Then get the best of both worlds. ;D ;D Apparently they're not going to be released without online indexes linked to the images (or so I was told earlier this year) which is a bit of a shame because I've no issue scrolling through pages of parish register images. :-\
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I agree its not as hard trawling through an unindexed transcribed set of parish registers as it is trawling through microfilm on readers where you have to keep turning a handle to move the film on & the films of parish registers don't have an index anyway & it would be a hard job with the same names being spelled so many different ways - oh well I suppose it keeps our brains active :)
All the very best
Phil
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Hello CD,
I am an American family historian, and recently, a new member of the Buckinghamshire Family History Society. My area of interest is Thame, and I have posted the following research request to the BFHS Members List. I see that you have been looking for access to The History of Thame, and I hope you found this record, or could help me find access to it as well.
Here is the background of my request to the Buckinghamshire Family History Society:
"Hello Fellow BFHS Members,
I see from the BFHS website that some of you have an interest in the Stanley family of Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire. So I am writing from America, to see if we could help each other, in our common research interests.
After 40 years of research (www.myheritage.com/site-70561601/lineage...ley-of-massachusetts), I am pursuing a new lead on the 17th C. English origin of Mathew Stanley/Standley, with some unexpected baptismal records offered by a Buckinghamshire genealogist/historian, who generously took the time to dig into some primary source material that I had seen referenced but not researched. The record is the first actual baptismal record for a Matthew Stanley, I've seen, with a birth date 02/11/1628, in Thame, Oxfordshire.
Thame is but a few miles (13) from the birthplace/homeplace of Mathew's American patron and neighbor, Zaccheus Gould, in Great Missenden, in the Aylesbury vale of Buckinghamshire, bordering Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire. The Putnams of Topsfield are also from this part of Buckinghamshire, and related to the Goulds, as are the Weedens, the Griggs, the Farringtons, Coopers, Tituses, and others, who also came to America in the same decade as the Goulds. I now have the image of the Thame baptismal record of Matthew Stanley, son of Ham(or Hamme) Stanley and Elizabeth Hawkins, born? and married in the adjacent community of Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire, in 1624.
We have also found a baptismal record for Elizabeth Stanley/Standley, b. 1630, to Ham and Elisabeth Stanley, and another son, Wm./William, father Ham, in 1642, in Thame. There is a death record for Ham "Hamme" Stanley,in 1667, in Thame.
The Buckinghamshire historian that found these records says there are no further Mathew Stanley/Standley/Stanly (marriage/death/land) records, which, of course, leaves her speculation that Matthew may have been taken as a child, or grown up and moved away, or immigrated, as a single young man with some of the 20-odd Buckinghamshire families that escaped from King Charles I and his Civil War, in Buckinghamshire and came to America, in the late 1630's and early 1640's.
Do any of your local English Stanley research or civic records have relevance to the above? Also, are you aware of any current Buckinghamshire/Oxfordshire Stanleys, that may have ancestral records, or even DNA tests done, that might be shared? Any help greatly appreciated.
Best Regards,
The Rev. Stephen R. Stanley (*)
Roanoke, VA USA, 9th generation descendant and historian of Mathew Stanley/Stanley (1628? England -1686 Topsfield MA, USA)"
I am most grateful for any response, and would gladly make a contribution to assist the Thame Historical Society, if that is possible.
Best Regards,
The Rev. Stephen R. Stanley
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Hello Stephen, and welcome to RootsChat!
The discussion you have just joined dates back to 2014, and matters have progressed since then. Almost all of the extant Oxfordshire parish records, complete with the original images, have been available on Ancestry since 29 September 2016.
Matthew Stanley's baptism record is there, but the date is 11 February 1628/9 - that is, 1628 in the old (Julian) calendar or 1629 in the new (Gregorian) calendar.
(You might notice that I write the names of months in full. This avoids confusion between the US date format - mm/dd/yyyy - and UK format - dd/mm/yyyy.)
I hope that some of this will be helpful to you.
Regards,
Carol
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Hi California Dreamin
As you know the parishes you want to dip into I can thoroughly recommend the parish register transcripts that OFHS have for sale on CD as I don't know where I would have been without the several that I have purchased over the years (granted when I purchased mine they were on fiche's) but I gather there is a lot more info on the CD's
All the very best
Phil
member 4711
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there are a number of Oxfordshire records on Ancestry which is of course a pay site
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There is a group on facebook = Nostalgic Thame & surrounding villages . they are very informative & helpful .
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Hi There
as for Ancestry being a pay site there is a way round that unless you live abroad as you should be able to get access to Ancestry Library edition at any local library & this version will be free of charge but can only be used in the libraries mores the pity. Or you could join the BMSGH & get a good discount on membership of Find My past & the discount is more than you would pay for membership of the BMSGH
All the very best
Phil
BMSGH member 16715
Phil
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as for Ancestry being a pay site there is a way round that unless you live abroad as you should be able to get access to Ancestry Library edition at any local library & this version will be free of charge but can only be used in the libraries mores the pity.
Two points.
I live in Australia and have used Ancestry free of charge at local libraries here. (I believe the same is true of New Zealand, but can't speak for other parts of 'abroad'.) The Library edition contains Ancestry's worldwide data, not limited to the country you're in, which was ideal for me as I only want English records.
Yes, you do have to use the library's own terminals to view records, but you use the 'save' button to email each one to yourself as you find it. It's easy to do and then the images are yours forever.
Carol
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Hi Carol
Well I've learned something today as I never realised that Ancestry library edition was free in Australia & New Zealand so thank you for letting me know about that
All the very best
Phil
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No worries Phil! The more people who know, the better. I made very good use of it until I took out my own sub :)
Carol