I seem to have hit a brick wall! Can anyone help? I am trying to discover who the parents were of Thomas Kelsey who married Elizabeth Reed in Southwick in April 1711. Once the couple married they seem to have settled in the Steyning area and there are records for the baptism of their children at Steyning. I believe the following are their children (all were baptised in Steyning): John baptised 1711 Elizabeth baptised 1712 Thomas baptised 1714 Mary baptised 1717 Sarah baptised 1719 Susan baptised 1723 Richard baptised 1726 Henry baptised 1728 William baptised 1732 If anyone has any information on the family it would be most gratefully received! Looking through the Steyning parish registers their seems to have been Kelsey's baptised from 1580-1623 and then the next Kelsey is not baptised in Steyning until 1711 - if anyone has any ideas on where the family disappeared to during this period I would love to hear them. Regards Rebecca Moody

Rebecca, I thought you may have run out of records, but the Archer Software site shows records go back to 1565. It looks like your problem is the gap in baptisms between 1623-1711. It could simply be that the register for that period hasn't survived. Have a look if there are any Kelsey marriages in this period. You might be able to fill part of the gap For example people born 1620 would most likely marry around 1640. And at the other end, people having children in 1711, would be born around 1690. So the gap becomes 50 rather than 100 years. Peter

The 50 year gap Peter described (1640-1690) included a time of unrest. During the English Civil War and in the following Commonwealth period, records were poorly kept and many are now missing after being destroyed or hidden by the clergy. Also in my research I´ve found gaps in Parish Registers at this time. In one parish the incumbent wrote a note at the end of the 17th century, to the effect that the person responsible for maintaining the registers had neglected to do so for some 30 years. So records missing 1642 - 1660 due to unrest an then the parish clerk didn´t complete the registers for yet another 30 years. Diane

The Steyning Parish Registers don't appear to suffer from the usual 'Commonwealth Gap', certainly not as far as baptisms and burials are concerned. Indeed the baptism register, in particular, was kept assiduously with both the date of birth and date of baptism recorded. There used to be a problem with dates in the marriages section during this period, but I believe that was remedied when the Sussex Marriage Index was being compiled. Steyning was a market town and drew people in from a wide area. I would suggest checking the registers of adjacent parishes e.g. Botolphs, Bramber, Ashurst & Wiston to see if they have any entries for the KELSEY family that might help to plug the gap. Have you tried checking the West Sussex Poor Law Index on the SRS web site, www.sussexrecordsociety.org , to see if there were any settlement cases that might explain the family's disappearance and then reappearance in Steyning? At the other end of the social scale, have you checked Chichester Archdeaconry Wills and PCC Wills to see if anything there strikes a chord? The Protestation Returns 1641/42 survive for most of West Sussex and are, effectively, a census of males over 18 years of age. They were transcribed, indexed and published as SRS volume 5 and could give a clue as to the parishes where the family was living at that time. You will find the volume on the SRS web site. Best wishes, Marion Woolgar Bognor Regis, West Sussex