Chat
|
Daily Search
|
My GenForum
|
Community Standards
|
Terms of Service
|
|
|
One of the benefits of viewing the film/s of Parish Records is that it presents the record in a "time period". That is, while the IGI will give you the exact entry and date in the majority of cases, it is presented in an alphabetical listing. The Parish Record, on the other hand is almost like a diary of daily events at the parish. Not only will you find the IGI entry you are seeking, but in the pages around that entry for the various days and months, you may be able to find records of "other" relatives, that are not evident when you look at the IGI's alphabetical listing. Take the scenario of say, Thomas Gardner's Christening listed as the son of James Gardner and Mary. You can scroll back on the film to a point say six to nine months back, and look for a possible marriage of James and Mary. There you find that there was a marriage recorded for a James Gardner and a Mary Flower. Now a little more scrolling, but this time about 16 to 20 years back to look for the Christening of a Mary Flower and a James Gardner. And while scrolling you can keep an eye open for people named Gardner or Flower as these are probably siblings or aunts and uncles. This is just a hypothetical case, but it just gives you some idea of the difference between using the IGI and the parish films, even though the data may be the same. It's just presented in a different context.
If you are lucky, you may find the odd marginal note/s recorded by Vicar about the family. These notes are not recorded in the IGI. Notes some times refer to Banns, may tell from which parish one of the participants in a marriage may have come from, or even make a reference to a previous marriage. Or, worse, there may even be some caustic comment recorded by a disapproving Vicar :-).
The other thing that parish films will show you that, in most cases (99.9%) the IGI doesn't, is Burials.
So, viewing any parish film is a worthwhile exercise regardless of the details you may have found on the IGI. You will find many of them to be virtual "time capsules", more so if your family of ancestors inhabited that parish for many, many generations.
Hope this helps....
Lance
Notify Administrator about this message?
Followups:
|
| http://genforum.genealogy.com/gen/messages/12547.html | ||
 |
Agreement of Use Link to GenForum Add Forum |
|