Fans of the free program "Parish Locator" might be interested in the following article published in this weeks Eastman's Newsletter........ Paul Portland (The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2001 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author.) > - Parish Locator for Windows > >This week I experimented a bit with a recently updated program, >called "Parish Locator." Nice program. I was going to describe it >here but found an excellent description that already exists within >the program's built-in Help file: > > This program provides the ability to examine the lists of > parishes and other vital record-keeping entities in the UK and > Ireland. Records may be viewed in various orders, and subsets > of the records may be selected to focus interest according to > your desires. The major subset selection is listing parishes > within a specified distance of a base parish. > > This routine was developed to assist in identifying records in > England, Scotland, and Wales that are available for Family > History research. We have attempted to include all parishes > and other entities that have kept vital records in a database > that can be searched by location as assistance to anyone doing > genealogical research in the UK. The database includes the > parish or entity name, the parish or entity type; the location > by county, country, and Ordnance Survey Reference; and the > dates that records are known to be available. > > Unfortunately, there are many problems with records, and > records may not actually be available for the full period that > is recorded in the database. We have attempted to indicate > both the earliest date and the latest date that records are > available. Original sources for the records may be determined > by reference to the online reference at Family History Library > Catalog. This is the catalog of genealogy references > available at the Family History Library of the Church of Jesus > Christ of Latter-day Saints. The repositories of the original > records are indicated in the notes for each record entry in > the catalog. > > The routine will identify and display parishes in the UK that > are within a specified distance of a selected reference > parish. It provides the capability to search by parish name > or partial name. The display may be ordered by parish name, > by county and country, or by Ordnance Reference. The user may > also display a subset of the records according to entered > criteria. > > This program and associated data is freeware and may be used > or passed on to or by anyone, providing all files are also > included. This program and the associated data are Copyright > by the authors, and only the right to use the program is > granted. All other rights including but not limited to use of > the database in other programs, any commercial sale in any > form, inclusion in any other work, and any use for profit are > reserved to the authors. Any use other than for family > history research by individuals must be authorized in writing. > The data has been prepared in the ongoing work on the Lawson > One Name Study by Terry Lawson of the Sussex Family History > Society; Gerald Lawson (gdl@yorksgen.org.uk) of the Yorkshire > Archeological Society, Family History Section; Steve Archer > (100142.2542@compuserve.com) and myself, Arlyn Liddell. > > In making this utility freely available for individual use, it > is hoped that many more family historians will gain the > benefits of being able to easily identify parishes that may > have recorded information useful to their research. > >Parish Locator is available online. You can download either a >self-installing executable file or a ZIP file which you then must >extract yourself using WinZIP, PKZIP, or a similar ZIP program. If >you don't already have a ZIP program, download the self-installing >executable file. Installation of Parish Locator was simple; it >only took a minute or so. > >In effect, Parish Locator is a database, along several tools to >search, sort and organize that database. You can easily find >parishes and then also find neighboring parishes. The program >includes a tool to select a particular parish and to display all >parishes within a certain distance from the selected parish. > >Parish Locator contains parish listings for about 24,500 churches, >including: > * Roman Catholic parishes > * Non-conformist (Protestant) parishes > * Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints parishes (stakes) > * State Church parishes > >It also contains listings for Civil Registration Districts. > >The Parish Locator program also supplies a bit of history about >parish records. The earliest parish records are those of the >Church of England and resulted from an order by Thomas Cromwell in >1538 that each parish should record every baptism, marriage and >burial. The system was standardized in 1598, when entries were >written in books made of parchment; all earlier existing records >were to be copied into the books. King Henry VIII had severed >connections between England and the Roman Catholic Church in 1534, >which led to the formation of the Church of England. By 1662 >Anglicanism secured its position as the state church. Followers of >all other denominations after this time were regarded as >'dissenters or nonconformists'. > >Civil registration of birth, marriage and death records began in >1837 throughout England and Wales, and in 1855 in Scotland. >Records prior to those years typically will be found only in >parish records, hence the usefulness of this program. > >Parish Locator is a free program. It requires Windows 95 or a >later version of Windows and also functions properly on Windows NT >and Windows 2000. The program is a large download at 6.3 >megabytes. It can downloaded from the GenUKI web site as a ZIP >file at: http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/parloc/parishlocator.zip or >as a self-installing executable file at: >http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/parloc/parishlocator.exe Subscribing to Eastman's Newsletter: ========================================================== Subscription information: There are two different methods to subscribe to this free newsletter: Method #1: to subscribe, to cancel an existing subscription, modify an existing subscription in any way or to read back issues, go to: http://www.rootsforum.com/newsletter.htm Method #2: Send an e-mail to rootscomputing-subscribe@listbot.com Please feel free to copy this subscription information and pass it on to anyone else who you think might be interested in obtaining a free subscription. ==========================================================