Jim and Grahame: Jim: I have not looked into them very deeply, in order to undertake any sort of overview analysis, but my perception is that in those cases where you find multiple entries for what seems to be the one event for the same person, on the NSW online BDM indexes; each 'event' will indicate a different Register. My perception is that in many cases there will have been two 'original' registers held by the church. Perhaps one was a rough 'day' register, and the other a more formal one completed later by the Minister from his 'day' register. Just guessing at this. In my own case, my Edward HAWKINS (convict per "John Barry" 1 in 1819 who was married by the legendaryRoman Catholic priest: Reverend Father John Joseph THERRY; has entries for the same marriage in what the R.C. archivists recorded as his Register "A" and his Register "B". Each with slightly different information in it -- or perhaps interpreted slightly differently by the transcribers. It seems to me that Father THERRY filled out rough details on the spot at the Hunter River at the time of the marriage, and then upon his return to Sydney he completed an 'official' register with the details. Accordingly, one interpretation has the marriage occurring at the Hunter River; and the other has it occurring at the old St.Mary's Cathedral in Sydney. Luckily, the Reverend Samuel MARSDEN complained to the Governor about Father THERRY's having performed several marriage ceremonies at the Hunter (after having been alerted to the fact by the Maitland C of E minister Rev. G.K. RUSDEN); so that I now know that the marriage was performed at Maitland. (This correspondence was found in the NSW State Records holdings via the Convicts Permission to Marry register entries.) Returning to multiple index entries for the one event: around the time of the inauguration of official civil registration, it is not uncommon to find in the NSW online indexes, 3 entries for an event: being the two different church registers and the civil registration. HTH: Ray ----- Original Message ----- From: "Grahame Thom" <[email protected]> > Hi Jim > > You have raised a challenging area of research. I dont think any of the > reels could be said to be indexes. I have never heard of the term > Bishop's Transcripts used in relation to church records in Australia. > Even in the UK it only relates to C of E records I think. I suggest you > consult Nick Vine Hall's Tracing your family history in Australia. As > well as giving a detailed description of early church records, he also > lists articles by others. > > I believe all the records on the Archives Kit reels can be said to be > original records. As you have found, one event can have multiple entries. > One simply has to look at all of them and if there are differences then, > in some cases, there is probably no way one can say which is correct. > There can be errors the first time an event is recorded. In writing up > one's family history you probably need to refer (by note perhaps) to all > entries. > > Hope you solve your particular challenges. > > Grahame ...