Hi Margaret I concur with Margaret Sheridan's comments, however as you live in Australia you might consider going along to your nearest LDS family history library (telephone book should show you where they are) where you can order in for viewing microfilms of the original parish registers and/or Bishops transcripts. Sometimes (or is it often?) when you can't locate a particular birth or baptism you have to resort to checking out other parishes close by and at $5 (Oz dollars) per microfilm that's fairly good value. Many of the films you might want are already stored within the Sydney repository and once you have them in your hands for viewing you have four weeks time to look at them (though in some circumstances you can book them longer for $2 extra). They then go back to Sydney for the next person to order. If the film has not been ordered before from Australia or New Zealand then it will have to come from Salt Lake City, which means a wait of about six to eight weeks or even more. But if the film is already in the Sydney repository you could get it within a week to10 days as LDS have instituted a new emailing process for orders from their local FH libraries. Over the past few months I have heard several whispers that LDS plans to digitize all of these films so that they will, eventually, be made available on the internet, possibly through Ancestry.com. That will be a sight to see, though I still find it somewhat of a puzzle as many of these parish records are really BIG, and some of the older ones - especially 17th & 18th century - are faded, damaged, badly written so one wonders how one can digitize those pages? Anyway, that's probably a number of years away and if you are as keen as I am, one can't wait, hence whiling away the hours trawling through microfilms. Email me off list if you need any more info. Cheerio Graham Melbourne

Hi List, Graham said; "..... Over the past few months I have heard several whispers that LDS plans to digitize all of these films so that they will, eventually, be made available on the internet, possibly through Ancestry.com....." In the long term, there will hopefully be another option available for UK based researchers to view Shropshire Parish records. I understand that Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury intend to distribute copies of the local Parish record fiche to various branch libraries throughout Shropshire. That would also make lookups for researchers overseas more feasible for more volunteers. The last time I enquired, no time scale had been agreed for the plan which is dependent on financial funding. All the best, Gwynne Transcribing the Bridgnorth town census. http://www.chadwickg.freeserve.co.uk