Susan C <[email protected]> wrote: >Are the records (for Sunderland) you mention available online? Susan The list I gave wasn't for Sunderland, it is a general list for any location, though not all classes of record survive in every area. Hardly any is available online. Brian -- Brian Pears (Joint List Admin - NORTHUMBRIA Mailing List)
Susan: Brian is quite right. However, as in other regions, there is a certain amount of overlap of "Lists". I am surprised, for instance, that Brian didn't mention that Northumbria covers the Sunderland district, so I would expect you to be quite welcome to post your Sunderland queries here. The Northumberland and Durham Family History Society, which operates its own (non-Rootsweb) List, as well as an on-line Forum, also covers Sunderland and, indeed, until not too long ago it did have a Sunderland Branch. There is also Sunderland Antiquarian Society, now with its own permanent premises in Douro Terrace, Sunderland, which has a web-site with a "members-only" section, which includes some people very knowledgeable indeed about the City of Sunderland. As for tracking down the 18th century and earlier records, once again, Brian's comments are quite correct, but what he doesn't mention, presumably because you asked about on-line ones, is that our local County Record Offices are full of them. Both Durham County Record Office and Tyne and Wear Archives have on-line catalogues and both operate in-house research services and in addition will normally, subject to the usual contraints with delicate materials etc, be willing to send you a photocopy for a moderate fee. As far as I'm concerned, and in general terms with many exceptions, research back to 1837 can tend to be a matter of "looking up" the GRO records and census material, all of which can be very straightforward these days with what is on-line. It is with pre-1837 material that the "real research" begins, and that is what makes it all the more fascinating. Progress may not usually be as quick as it can be for the later period, but that is one of the reasons why family history research can last a lifetime! Don't be put off, then, by the lack of ease of access. It isn't long ago that there was nothing "on-line", because there was no internet anyway. We still managed to get things done! Subscribers may care to note that pre-1837 research in South Tyneside is precisely the topic of a meeting of the S Tyneside branch of the NDFHS (of which I am Branch Chairman and on this occasion will also be the speaker) which is being held in South Shields this coming Wednesday evening. I can send more details off-list to anyone who would like to contact me in that way about it. Geoff Nicholson Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: Brian Pears <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 3:21 Subject: Re: [NMB] Sunderland Susan C <[email protected]> wrote: >Are the records (for Sunderland) you mention available online? Susan The list I gave wasn't for Sunderland, it is a general list for any location, though not all classes of record survive in every area. Hardly any is available online. Brian -- Brian Pears (Joint List Admin - NORTHUMBRIA Mailing List) .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message
Hi Geoff, Thank you for that, I do appreciate it. You are quite right, "Information Highway" (as we called it in the 1980's) was a vision to students, historians, professionals or just to some interested people looking for information on the internet. In the 1970's everything was done the hard way, with typewriters, driving to another city or state, or flying to another continent to look for an ancestor was a challenge indeed. A brother to my grandfather commissioned a genealogist to England and Scotland to research our family in 1862. Can you imagine the length of time it took for the travels and the mail in those days? My family letters show ancestors in England back to the year 1655, records then are sketchy, we are lucky to find any scrap of information about anyone. Anything before that is harder to track, but, isn't that what research is all about? I will look into the DFHS, and the Sunderland Antiquarian Society, I have not heard of the SAS, but it sounds like an interesting group worth investigating. Regards, Susan USA ________________________________ From: Geoff Nicholson <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, April 14, 2013 4:42 AM Subject: Re: [NMB] Sunderland Susan: Brian is quite right. However, as in other regions, there is a certain amount of overlap of "Lists". I am surprised, for instance, that Brian didn't mention that Northumbria covers the Sunderland district, so I would expect you to be quite welcome to post your Sunderland queries here. The Northumberland and Durham Family History Society, which operates its own (non-Rootsweb) List, as well as an on-line Forum, also covers Sunderland and, indeed, until not too long ago it did have a Sunderland Branch. There is also Sunderland Antiquarian Society, now with its own permanent premises in Douro Terrace, Sunderland, which has a web-site with a "members-only" section, which includes some people very knowledgeable indeed about the City of Sunderland. As for tracking down the 18th century and earlier records, once again, Brian's comments are quite correct, but what he doesn't mention, presumably because you asked about on-line ones, is that our local County Record Offices are full of them. Both Durham County Record Office and Tyne and Wear Archives have on-line catalogues and both operate in-house research services and in addition will normally, subject to the usual contraints with delicate materials etc, be willing to send you a photocopy for a moderate fee. As far as I'm concerned, and in general terms with many exceptions, research back to 1837 can tend to be a matter of "looking up" the GRO records and census material, all of which can be very straightforward these days with what is on-line. It is with pre-1837 material that the "real research" begins, and that is what makes it all the more fascinating. Progress may not usually be as quick as it can be for the later period, but that is one of the reasons why family history research can last a lifetime! Don't be put off, then, by the lack of ease of access. It isn't long ago that there was nothing "on-line", because there was no internet anyway. We still managed to get things done! Subscribers may care to note that pre-1837 research in South Tyneside is precisely the topic of a meeting of the S Tyneside branch of the NDFHS (of which I am Branch Chairman and on this occasion will also be the speaker) which is being held in South Shields this coming Wednesday evening. I can send more details off-list to anyone who would like to contact me in that way about it. Geoff Nicholson Geoff Nicholson -----Original Message----- From: Brian Pears <[email protected]> To: northumbria <[email protected]> Sent: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 3:21 Subject: Re: [NMB] Sunderland Susan C <[email protected]> wrote: >Are the records (for Sunderland) you mention available online? Susan The list I gave wasn't for Sunderland, it is a general list for any location, though not all classes of record survive in every area. Hardly any is available online. Brian -- Brian Pears (Joint List Admin - NORTHUMBRIA Mailing List) .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message .. Please remember to snip most of the earlier message before you post any reply...... Thank you! The NORTHUMBRIA FAQ page is located at http://www.bpears.org.uk/NorthumbriaFAQ/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message