I recently visited Kedal record office and pored over microfiche of parish records..only to find significant parts of whole pages were illegible due to what look like large ink splodges.These parts were sometimes the very periods I needed! If the microfiche is illegible-is there a further copy available in some churches-accessible by consent of a friendly (?) vicar On the BBC programme "Who do you think you are" (UK) last week I noted the descendant poring over a church copy of an early 19C register for information on her great great grandparent. Are duplicates of the Bishops transcripts still held at some churches. If so--does anyone have experience of this in terms of helpfulness of vicars/legibility? Stephen Stephen Savage If you are not the intended recipient for this e mail please reply to sender accordingly and delete this e mail.

Hi Stephen I think in the whole Parish Records are now kept in County Record Offices and they are not keen to let you handle them at all, which is not surprising. I would guess that Who Do You Think You are has mislead the general public by making sure that that particular book was taken out to the relevant church. One church St Peters in Wallsend Tyne & Wear has its parish records delivered from the Woodhorn Records office each September for Heretage Open Day weekend and returns them after this so that the members of the congregation and visitors can see what is really in fact their records, but this is the only one I know who does this and the Records office are not happy about this but are powerless to stop it. I know it is so frustrating when you hit this sort of problem as I have done this myself, with the Bishop Transcripts going online this has been a great help to all of us in Northumberland and Durham but they are not all there and that causes frustration too. Maybe one day this will be rectified by the Latter Day Saints who are trying to get more transcripts on line The Bishop Transcripts were kept with the Bishop of the County, I believe the Northumberland and Durham ones were with the university of Durham. Fingers crossed that they will come online for other counties in the near future then we will all have access to the information we crave without having to handle these precious documents. Hope this helps Marg --- Stephen Savage <stephen.savage54@btopenworld.com> wrote: > I recently visited Kedal record office and pored > over > microfiche of parish records..only to find > significant > parts of whole pages were illegible due to what look > like large ink splodges.These parts were sometimes > the > very periods I needed! > > If the microfiche is illegible-is there a further > copy > available in some churches-accessible by consent of > a > friendly (?) vicar > > On the BBC programme "Who do you think you are" > (UK) > last week I noted the descendant poring over a > church > copy of an early 19C register for information on her > great great grandparent. > > Are duplicates of the Bishops transcripts still held > at some churches. If so--does anyone have experience > of this in terms of helpfulness of > vicars/legibility? > > Stephen > > Stephen Savage > > If you are not the intended recipient for this e > mail please reply to sender accordingly and delete > this e mail. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email > to ENG-WESTMORLAND-request@rootsweb.com with the > word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject > and the body of the message >