In a message dated 11/10/2009 21:27:50 GMT Daylight Time, beacock@myexcel.ca writes: Wondering if anyone can tell me where I could obtain Parish Records such as in CD format (births, marriages, deaths,) and memorial inscriptions for Holy Island, Northumberland As with all similar requests based on a particular Northumberland or Co Durham parish, the best place for anyone not living in this region to begin is with the NDFHS website - _www.ndfhs.org.uk_ (http://www.ndfhs.org.uk) - where you will find a list of what is (a) for sale, in microfiche and/or CD format - and what they have in their library at Bolbec Hall, Newcastle. Transcripts of parish registers to 1812 are probably in the H M Wood MSS in Newcastle Central Library, and the original parish registers will be in Northumberland County Record Office at Woodhorn, Northumberland or else at Durham County Record Office in Durham. Tynea nd Wear Archives have no original C of E registers but they do have a good collection of nonconformist registers a nd they also have microfilm copies of C of E registers for their district. MIs are much more "hit-and-miss, as regards whether they have been recorded (most of the pre-1837 churchyards have been), where copies are now held and whether any particular burial is recorded on a stone anyway. Again, the NDFHS has the best collection but others are held by Newcastle library and by County Record Offices. When looking at parishes in the extreme north of the county - say Holy Island and beyond - bear in mind that Berwick upon Tweed branch of Northumberland Record Office have their own considerable collection of material, but no parish registers, though they do have all those for north Northumberland on microfilm. As a general hint, the trend was always for the coastal population to drift from north to south. Hence a family anywhere on the Northumberland coast may well have come down the coast from further north, and ultmately from Scotland. Geoff Nicholson