Wentworth parish registers

[AndrewMartin]

Hello

For some time i have been working around the lack of Wentworth marriage records being available at the Cambridge CRO... but i was wondering whether anyone has actually transcribed these or part of these.

I also wonder how much of an issue it would be TO transcribe them, making the records available through the CFHS for example on CD-ROM and give some of the profits back to Wentworth's church for the trouble

A significant number of my ancestral families lived and worked in Wentworth for generations... and passed through the church too. So i'm stumped with this tiny parish.

Marriage records hold so much useful information, more information on individuals than baptism or burial records and provides the researcher with maiden names and parents names too... I'm sure that the reason that the marriage register book has yet to surface is because of the tiny parish not actually performing many... or maybe there's another crafty reason??

Anyone have any ideas?

[Nick Carver]

Perhaps my experience could help? I did precisely this for Isleham with exactly the same motives and two of us finished the records (1566 to date) in about 9 months. It was quite a substantial undertaking, but the CFHS were extremely supportive and delighted to have some help. If you are interested, send me a PM and I'll give you some contact details. One thing you might consider first. The priest is strictly speaking entitled to any fees for record searches and under the circumstances you describe, would not be doing anything so would probably be more than happy to relinquish his/her rights in perpetuity to the fees as long as some of the proceeds were going to the church. Just a formality really, but worth doing at this point.

[AndrewMartin]

Nick,

Thank you, I'm glad that you've already done this for Isleham and i read your message with interest. Hopefully the Wentworth parish will be as receptive to the idea as they were... for such a tiny parish i think that it would a) take a long time for these marriage registers to appear "naturally" and b) would be profitable for the church without having to keep bothering the priest or churchwarden to check the records.

I'd appreciate any more information that you may have regarding contacts and your methods of work.

kind regards,

[Nick Carver]

Andrew

I've replied to your PM but would encourage anyone who has a bottleneck in a particular parish to consider volunteering to transcribe the records if not already done. If lots of people around the country all do this, then it helps all us amateur genealogists in the long run. Form a consortium to get it done. It can be a huge task for one person, but don't volunteer to do marriages if some other poor soul will do so. There is just so much information in the marriage register !

Nick

[AndrewMartin]

Thanks Nick,

Your messages and PMs have been very helpful and interesting. I will try the contacts that you mention.

As a Web Project Manager for Cambridge University I'm used to handling data, manipulating it and converting it to electronic storable format... but i'm sure that this would be an epic task with long term rewards for Wentworth Church, Genealogical Researchers and a of historical interest to Wentworth parish.

In support to that which Nick has already said, helping history societies is very important and although this idea was primarily for personal use, i'd like to think that this kind of thing benefits researchers in the future. CFHS and the like are sure to be glad of the time and effort.