A HARDWICK connection

Over the last week a couple of new-to-me Wing researchers have gotten in touch - hi there! One was even connected to my own HARDWICK line which was really nice. Is there anyone else out there with a Hardwick connection, or an interest in PAGE, BONHAM or WOODRUFF? Or anyone else who is finding the information in the Wing One Place Study useful and hasn't emailed me to introduce themselves? I'd love to hear from you, if I know you're out there and which families you are researching I may be able to put you in touch with other people working on the same family.

Parish Registers vs Bishops Transcripts

I mentioned bishops transcripts a few blog posts ago. Newbies might appreciate knowing a bit more about bishops transcripts, and how they differ from parish registers.

Parish registers are the primary source of information about key life events that took place within the parish church (baptisms, marriages and burials). Exactly what information was recorded about these events depends on the timeframe it occurred (generally the later it was the more information you will get) and the clergyman involved in recording the entry. Some vicars were more conscientious about recordkeeping than others, and some were simply more opinionated than others! The vicars of Wing were generally pretty good with recordkeeping and there are certainly comments and other pieces of information over and above the norm scattered throughout the parish registers.

In order to gain more visibility about what was going on at parish level, each diocese requested that an exact copy of the records be made each year and sent in to them. These were known as bishops transcripts. While they are supposed to be an exact copy, obviously mistakes and omissions may have occurred in preparing the transcript each year. On a happier note, if the original parish records were subsequently damaged or lost the bishops transcripts can act as a replacement source of information for genealogists. It may not be apparent from the parish records that such a loss has occurred, so if you are looking for a particular entry in the parish registers and don't find it you should probably also check the bishops transcripts if available, on the offchance that the entry does exist there.

The practice of making bishops transcripts ran up until 1837 when civil registration came in. Wing's surviving bishops transcripts run from 1600 to 1842 with some gaps, most notably the 1672 to 1701 period.

The reason I used bishops transcripts in my comparison with the IGI baptisms was simply because I happened to have them at hand, as I was checking to make sure there wasn't a missing marriage for one of my MUNDAYs in there. I'm now transcribing the actual parish registers for baptisms for that same period, so can report that the BTs and the PRs are fairly consistent with each other. There is the odd entry missed out from the BTs, a few dates (generally the month for some reason) recorded differently, and minor spelling variations (Anne vs Ann, or Ascott vs Ascot) but definitely much less variation between the PRs and the BTs than there was between the BTs and the IGI!

September update

Only one update this month, but it's a goodie! The 803 burials in Wing from 1846 to 1874 inclusive have now been transcribed and are on the website.

Don't forget about the sitemap on the website, which has a direct link to every individual page on the site. You can find the link to the sitemap at the bottom of the right-hand column on the homepage, and once there you can click through directly to any of the new years of burials.

Transcriptions of all the burials from the start of the Wing parish registers in 1546 through to 1909 are now readily available as follows:
1546 to 1782 - in the Woodman transcripts (available on CD from S&N Genealogy Supplies)
1783 to 1812 - on my website
1813 to 1845 - in the National Burial Index (available on CD from FFHS)
1846 to 1909 - on my website

I won't be getting around to transcribing either the 1813 to 1845 period or the pre 1782 period of burials any time soon - given the deficiences in the IGI extracted batches for baptisms I'll probably turn my attention to getting complete transcriptions of the baptisms next! They're much slower going than burials though......

Handy Hints - historical directories

Surviving historical directories generally start from around the 1840s (they're pretty scarce before that point) and stretch on into the 1900s. In the earlier days they obviously weren't needed for either phone number or address purposes, except in the larger towns - in the villages everyone knew where everyone lived! For genealogists today they are a great resource for understanding a village.

From them you'll be able to establish the relative size of the town or village you are interested in, churches and other key places within the village, local transportation, notable events (eg the town being destroyed by fire or ravaged by smallpox) and key residents. Note that not everyone will be included, generally just notable families and tradesmen, and some places are too small to warrant their own entry.

I've transcribed the entries for Wing for all the directories I've been able to get my hands on (further contributions always welcome). If you are looking for someone in particular, there's also a cross-referenced index of names found in those directories, otherwise just browse by year from the home page to get a feel for Wing at any given time.

A fabulous website is www.historicaldirectories.org, where a collection of English and Welsh directories have been scanned and made freely available for viewing (you can also save individual pages to PDF) by the University of Leicester. The original commitment was to have these on the web until October 2007 - there's no word yet as to whether this will be extended, so now would be a good time to research the villages found in your family tree. I've just made some interesting new discoveries, like my cabinet-maker great-great-grandfather also being listed as an auctioneer in Blandford Dorset in 1842.

Oh so quiet

Between the Northern Hemisphere enjoying their summer holidays and the Southern Hemisphere hibernating, it seems a bit quiet on the genealogical front at the moment. My email inbox has all but dried up this month (apart from the spam of course). I've been working away on getting some more Wing burials transcribed, and it does look hopeful that they might be ready in time for the September website update - just as well, as I haven't prepared anything else this time around!

Handy Hints - IGI

Genealogist newbies might appreciate the odd handy hint and useful tidbit of information about sources and "best practice". Comparing the Wing data in the International Genealogical Index (IGI) with the actual data from parish registers proved quite illuminating, so here are some things you might like to know.

By way of background, entries in the IGI all have a batch number. Those that are noted as being "extracted batches" have been indexed by the LDS church from the parish records of the place in question. Conventional wisdom says these extracted entries are fairly reliable, while other entries which have been submitted by individuals can be fairly unreliable.

I have compared the baptism entries from the IGI batch C014632 for Wing with the bishop's transcripts for Wing for the years 1813 to 1816 inclusive. Here are some conclusions -

* If an entry is in the IGI, the details you can see for that entry are more than likely correct (ie no errors have probably been made in either the names or dates)

* However this does not mean that all the information in that original entry is included on the IGI. For example, at this time the parish registers will also tell you the abode - limited to village/hamlet - of the family (eg Thomas and Susannah BRASINGTON were living in Crafton when they baptised Sarah Bailey Brasington in 1813), the occupation of the father (eg John FOSTER is listed as a blacksmith when daughter Mary was baptised in 1814), and the name of the minister who performed the baptism. You may also get other non-standard pieces of information, like the fact two children baptised on the same day with the same parents were definitely twins!

* There may be further entries in the parish registers that have been missed out altogether in the extracted batches for the IGI. In the four years from 1813 to 1816, 37 of the 135 baptisms are missing - that's a whopping 27% of the entries you might have been looking for! So if you are connected to the Adams, Bailey, Bandy, Bolton, Bone, Brasington, Capp, Cheshire, Denchfield, Dimmock, Dollimer, Foster, Haggis, Hedges, Holyman, Jennings, Loe, Luck, Mead, Page, Pollard, Robbins, Rose, Simmons, Smelt, Staples, Steel, Woodman, Woolhead or Woster families, and have tried to construct your family tree over this period solely using the IGI, you definitely have some people missing (and perhaps even twins).

While the IGI is a great (and free!) resource, it should not be used in isolation to research or support your genealogy. It's an index only - and as we have seen, it is not necessarily a complete one. Your aim should always be to use original sources where possible.

The IGI can be accessed on the LDS website here:
IGI

Extracted batch numbers for Wing are:
P014631 - baptisms 1546-1812 (and a few burials)
C014632 - baptisms 1813-1870
C014633 - baptisms 1870-1881
M014631 - marriages 1546-1812
M014632 - marriages 1813-1881

New computer

We have a new computer, complete with Vista and the latest version of Outlook. Email might therefore be a bit dodgy for the next few days while I get everything set up, so if you don't hear from me immediately, please be patient, I may be experiencing technical difficulties!

As always, you'll have a lesser chance of getting trapped by my spam filters if you have a relevant subject line, like "POLLARD in Wing".