Just when you thought I might have lost interest and were breathing a sigh of relief, I’m back again ready to bore you with more news of the Barraclough’s of the dimmest and most distant past. I have been having a rest from genealogy since the middle of June last year, caused by holidays, Christmas and the Borthwick Institute being closed from June until January. I was visiting the Borthwick Institute recently, which has only re-opened earlier this month in a brand new building on the York University Campus. Not much to report on the Barraclough’s except that I found some more references to Wills dating from around 1500. These names were interesting: - Joan Baroclogh (Roger’s widow) and Margaret Baroclowth (sounds a bit posh to me, being a Yorkshireman) alias Creswall. I am hoping to update the list of Wills on my website with new additions and corrections soon. Perhaps someone can help me. I have found the Parish Registers for Halifax Parish Church, I’ve only made cursory inspections so far, from 1600 to 1800 on microfiche virtually unreadable. The Bishop’s Transcripts, on microfilm, seem to be easier to read but so far the only copies I have seen are in York. The original Registers are archived at Wakefield, but the archivists there are reluctant to allow the public access. The IGI seems to be a waste of time for this periodmpla Southowramerholme of Stansfieldn abode. The Halifax Parish is so large geographically that it is essential as their entries appear to be hit and miss, unreliable and lacking an abode. The Halifax Parish is so large geographically that it is essential to know if someone is from Halifax, Hipperholme, Shelf, Northowram, Southowram, Heptonstall etc, etc. Does anyone know where there is another copy of the Bishop’s Transcripts closer to Birstall than York? Whilst on the subject of the Halifax Parish Registers someone has recently (almost) completed an excellent transcript covering the years 1694 to 1725. This is still in manuscript form and is available for reference at the Wakefield Archives. I have started working through it and will update my on-line database as and when. Needless to say it contains lots of ‘new’ events not available on the IGI, or anywhere else for that matter. Jeff Sutcliffe http://www.btinternet.com/~jeff.sutcliffe Researching Ambler, Baker, Barraclough, Bates, Booth, Broadbent, Brook, Brown, Chadwick, Collins, Coning, Crowther, Fearnley, Hanson, Hardcastle, Hartas, Harwood, Holmes, Metcalf, Nowell, Oliver, Pennington, Pollard, Radcliffe, Roebuck, Routh, Smith, Sugden, Sutcliffe, Tordoff, Ventress, Walker, Whitaker, Whiteley, Wilkinson, Wilson All of the Yorkshire Area.