Hello I just came across this post as I am trying to see the original parish registers for South Shields before 1727.
I am looking into Thomas Matthews, a butcher, who grave stone is one of the few that is still in the churchyard of St Hilda which I saw when I visited last year. It states 10 of his children were also buried there.
His will names children Robert Matthews, Thomas Matthews and Ann Burdon, but not the Isabel wife of Gerrard Anderson also named on his stone, so I assume she predeceased him.
The gravestone looks like his wife Elizabeth is also on the stone, but his will was proved by a Jane. So were there two wives?
I can't see being able to work this out without viewing the registers online, but from what I can see only the BTs post 1763 can be consulted. Can anyone please tell me if this is correct?
Thank you,
Jon
Hi
To the best of my knowledge (and I would LOVE to be proved wrong) you are unlikely to find anything other than the BTs online and, as you say, they don't cover the right time frame.
The originals of these registers are held at The Durham Record Office which is currently closed while they move to new premises but last we heard they are to open in June.
Tyne and Wear Archives hold them on microfilm, and I'd imagine that South Tyneside Local History Library in South Shields may well have them on microfilm too but you'd need to check with them.
Newcastle Library have manuscripts of transcriptions by Herbert Maxwell Wood (which are usually pretty reliable)
The LDS have digitised those, but they can only be viewed at a Family History Centre if you have one near you - baptisms and marriages have been indexed so can be searched from home but burials are, as yet, unindexed.
So if you aren't in the North East and therefore easily able to visit local archives, try searching the baptisms/marriages indexed in these
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/171149?availability=Family%20History%20LibraryIf you get a likely result and can give a date and details then someone local to the area may be willing to do a lookup at TWAS or South Shields for you.
Boo
