Info to gain maybe info that is missing from searches: Hi Everyone, I have copied the following from a mailing to one of the lists. They are records I didn't know existed and may help someone find a missing ancestor. Parish Chest records usually consist of vestry minutes that were taken down by the clerk of the vestry at the parish church. The vestry usually consisted of 12 persons, usually those of more stable means than the other parishioners. They were entrusted with repairs to the church, required to administer the poor law, manage charities, sometimes administer the workhouse (the parish priest was usually the chaplain of the workhouse), raise money for repair to the highways, and all manner of things, including "control" of the village constable. Parish Chest records also consist of Churchwardens' Accounts, which are the records of the taxes that had to be paid by parishioners to the parish.. Taxes were often paid at Ladies Day, and at Easter. The Easter Tithes generally show all those required to pay taxes on land, house & garden (believe it!) a pig, cows, horses, hives of bees, fields of corn, flax, turnips, etc. When they employed a milk-maid my ggg-grandparents Thomas & Martha Peate of Alberbury Parish paid an extra four-pence tax for her. (Easter Tithes 1810). These accounts often give the place where the taxpayer lives. If it had not been for the Churchwardens' Accounts of Alberbury (where Thomas & Elizabeth had their children christened), I would not have known that they were farming at Criggion, further to the West and on the Montgomeryshire border. Bingo! Sometimes mention is made in Vestry Minutes and Churchwardens' Accounts of pew rentals. Pews were rented out, and often were handed down in the family from generation to generation. It was fairly normal in the late 1700s for pews to be rented out for about a shilling or one and sixpence a year. The ceasing of payment for a pew might indicate that the family has died out, moved away, or in the case of a widow, re-married. These records are often available from County Record Offices and many have also been microfilmed by the LDS folk. One Ellesmere record described every stick of furniture in the workhouse! Some poor of the parish, who were not in the workhouse, are often mentioned as being given "five shillings to the Widow Green for relief," or words to that effect, and often given on a six monthly basis for a number of years. One parish I was researching had a yearly bequest that had to be distributed to the poor. Interesting thing was that many on the vestry who were administering the bequest (virtually all one family) were receiving the money themselves! And one had a butler! Pam