Why Aren't Parish Records Searchable?

[david64]

I have been wondering why the availability of parish records online is so slim online for England & Wales. If the Scotts have the lot online why can't the rest of the country? Is there some sort of legal issue?

Also, lets say I got a parish records microfilm, would there be anything stopping me digitalise it and put it online?

[PaulineJ]

It's up to the incumbent(s) to decide what to do with the registers.

Not sure about putting images online. You could certainly 'do' an index, but I suspect the film could be copyright

[behindthefrogs]

You would need to check the copyright of the the microfilm.

The basic answer to your question is that the population of England is ten times that of Scotland.  Who is going to pay for the digitisation? As for indexing, prior to 1812 it is a very manual exercise and there are numerous groups attacking this problem both at individual FHS and sites like FREEREG.

They all depend on volunteers.  How many records have you transcribed?

David

[Lydart]

Think of the fun of the chase you'd miss out on if all parish records were online ! 

Lots of OPC's are getting records online ...

[david64]

I can understand that it could take the fun out of things for some people, but personally, I'd prefer it if I could do it all from my computers - as I am probably going to be able to do with my 1/16 of Scottish ancestry. If you want to do it by traveling around, you could still do it that way.

Aren't all the microfilms copyright of the crown? I thought the government had them made for reference.

Re. the size of the population. I don't think that seems to be much of an issue. Just look at the census, its been transcribed from 1941-1911 1841 - 1911 by at least two different companies. Doing the parish records is not too different of that, except you don't have to do the same person every 10 years of their life. So I would have thought that one of them would be happy to do the digitalisation. Moderator Correction

However, what I was thinking of was just putting the image online. If I know an ancestor was probably born in 1753 in Llansilin parish, I could just look though that parish at that time.

Then when it comes to the registers, they would be a walk in the park. I am a computer programmer with experience of reading text from low quality image sources that need cleaning up etc. Digitalising registers would be a walk in the park.

[stanmapstone]

It's up to the incumbent(s) to decide what to do with the registers.

Not sure about putting images online. You could certainly 'do' an index, but I suspect the film could be copyright

Since 1978 with the passing of the Parochial Registers and Records Measure, the long-term care of parish registers and other important parochial archives has been covered by law. The 1978 Measure was brought up to date by the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 1992, which came into force on 1st January 1993.Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials and registers of banns, confirmations and services are, when completed have to be permanently deposited at the Diocesan Record Office. Where Parish Archives remain with an incumbent they should be available for inspection 'at all reasonable hours' and fees are payable as set out in the 'Table of Parochial Fees'
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/lifeevents/ministry/workofmindiv/dracsc/ffandaw/

Stan

[stanmapstone]

(2)The register books referred to in subsection (1) above shall be provided by, and shall be deemed to belong to, the parochial church council of the parish.
Parochial Registers and Records Measure 1978
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/revisedstatutes/acts/ukcm/1978/cukcm_19780002_en_1
Stan

[BumbleB]

Oh dear, you haven't got a soul, have you?  Half the fun of family history is looking at the records as they are written - not some transcription by someone who has been paid to do it, and therefore doesn't take the same care as we would for ourselves (excluding FreeBMD where we are all volunteers).  Because a lot of my own research is carried out long-distance I feel I miss out on so much.  So I've volunteered to do some local work for someone who can't get to the records office, and it's such fun.  If I'm lucky I can get to handle the original parchment documents, otherwise it's scouring the fiche and films.  Yesterday I was looking at a whole batch of baptisms and burials, pre 1813 and found that the vicar had added, at the end of each year, a summary of the events of that year, starting with worldwide news of our problems with Bonaparte, to the festivities to commemmorate the king's 50th year of his reign, to the local news on having the church repewed and the pavements being re-flagged.  I even found a summary of the population in 1802 for England, Wales and Scotland plus how many were in the army, navy, registered seamen and convicts on the hulks.  If I relied on someone's transcription of the records, would this have been included?  I think not.  Going to the records office is wonderful.  

BumbleB

[behindthefrogs]

Aren't all the microfilms copyright of the crown? I thought the government had them made for reference.

Then when it comes to the registers, they would be a walk in the park. I am a computer programmer with experience of reading text from low quality image sources that need cleaning up etc. Digitalising registers would be a walk in the park.

I think you will find that the parish registers as distinct from the BMD registers after 1837 have not been microfilmed other than by the LDS and some record offices.  I don't think that there was a crown requirement.

While digitising the post 1812 registers should be relatively easy as they were recorded in preprinted books, prior to that it would be a nightmare.  Yes an image can of course be produced but any attempt to interpret that image to form an index would be very difficult.  For example earlier publications which were done manually frequently confuse banns and marriages and I have seen examples where burials were transcribed as baptisms.  It is often necessary to learn the handwriting of individual incumbents or churchwardens before any reasonable transcription can be attempted even manually.

David

David