Indexes and Transcripts

GENUKI Book Chapter 3

GENUKI gives access to indexes of names and summaries of documents in a variety of ways. However you get them, remember that there is usually more information in the original document. An index to a marriage will just give the names of bride and groom; the register entry may give their ages, homes, occupations, whether they have been widowed, names of fathers, and names of witnesses. Once you have a reference to a document, you can usually get a copy quite cheaply from the archives holding the original. You can also employ a searcher to look at the original, get you a photocopy, and transcribe additional information. There was a list of professional researchers who discuss or accept commissions by email on John Woodgate's pages at http://www.woodgate.org/FAQs/adverts.html [but this link no longer works]

GENUKI may contain or have links to:

Transcript or abstract ( in date or other original order of the document) as a web page.

Index (usually in alphabetic order of names) as a web page

See examples 3.1 to 3.5. Internet search engines work on indexes and transcripts held as web pages. You may need a browser "find" within the web page to find the entry. A search of GENUKI pages is available at www.genuki.org.uk/search/ .

On-line search of a database not on a web page

Notable examples are Scots Origins, FamilySearch, Commonwealth War Graves Commission. These have their own search, a "fill in a form" web page. They just return the hits, and entries are not found by web search engines. Example 3.6 shows a search of a database of passengers to Victoria, Australia.

Off-line search service: you pay a Family History Society or individual holding the index, to do a search. Usually payment and results are by post. See example 3.7, Northamptonshire FHS Personal Name Database.

Published Index to names: there are thousands of indexes available, mainly from family history societies, as booklets, or microfiche, or computer disks. Example 3.8 shows some marriage indexes available from Bristol and Avon Family History Society. The society also provides a search service. Most societies' web pages list publications available, some with on-line sales.

Abstracts

Example 3.1 is an abstract of the text of wills. Nick Hidden abstracted the text of about 1000 wills from Berkshire and surrounding areas. They are wills for surnames of interest to him, but have other people mentioned - relatives, witnesses, executors, etc.. The one shown in the example is the will of Edward Playstead, but also mentions Francis and Martha Bear.

Transcripts of name lists

I found example 3.2 by using a search for "Blackmore" in the Devon pages of GENUKI. One hit was a Pigots Directory for Devonport. It gives the name, profession and address. The list is in alphabetical order of professions, then alphabetical order of names within each profession. The example shows just four names from the list, including the two "Blackmore" entries located by the web search.

Berryman, Richd: Attorney          18 St Aubyn Street
Birkhead, R Hawker: Attorney       32 Chapel Street
Blackmore, Jn Pym: Attorney        50 Fore Street
Blackmore, Walter Pomery: Attorney 6 Morice Street

Another way in to the same transcript is to ask "what lists of names are there for Devonport?". To do this choose England, then Devon, then Stoke Damerel, then Personal Names. (Devonport is in the parish of Stoke Damerel - for ways of finding where places appear in GENUKI, see Chapter 2 examples 2.8 to 2.12).

Parish Register Transcripts

Example 3.4 shows indexes and transcripts of church records for Durham. This is under the topic "Church Records" in the page for the county of Durham.

Note that in looking for indexes you may have to look at different levels. At the top level there is FamilySearch with the IGI including many parish registers, at the county level there is a marriage index, at individual place level there are transcripts for particular parishes.

I used the Durham parish register search facility from example 3.4 to search for the surname Lilburn. One hit indicated was in marriages from Sunderland Registers 1830-1837; the first part of example 3.5 shows the head of this page. The entries are in date order as in the original register. To locate the Lilburn entry that made the page a hit, I used the web browser find facility to look for occurrences of the word "Lilburn". The second part of example 3.5 shows a few entries from the register, including that for William Lilburn marrying on 8th May 1830.

5  May 1830 Samuel Doughty = Margaret Towell
5  May 1830 Joseph Potts = Grace Petty
8  May 1830 William Lilburn = Mary Robson
10 May 1830 Martin Mattinson = Cordelia Cook
16 May 1830 Daniel Bowan = Margaret Richardson

On-line Search on database of names

The next example shows a link from GENUKI to a searchable database outside GENUKI - passengers to Victoria, Australia. In the topic "Emigration and immigration" at the top (UK & Ireland) level of GENUKI shown in example 2.1, we are told that "The Public Record Office of Victoria, Australia has provided an Index to Inward Overseas Passengers from Foreign Ports 1852-1859 (indexed by Surname)." Choosing this gives a choice of databases to search; the preamble to one of them is shown as the first part of example 3.6; the page continues with a form to fill in. I asked for entries for the surname "Excell" and was given the table of seven Excell passengers shown in the second part of example 3.6. It is possible that the William on the ship Essex in 1855 is my wife's ancestor, and that Sophia and Fanny on the Maidstone in 1858 are two of his sisters. The microfiche reference may give me extra information to establish whether these are the right people.

Note that these Excell names do not appear on a web page, so they cannot be found using a web search engine. They can only be found by going to the relevant Public Record Office of Victoria web page and filling in a form on that web page. But the information is supplied immediately from their computer, and is sent to your computer.

Off-line search service

Example 3.7 shows the description of a search service available from Northamptonshire Family History Society. They have an index on computer covering many different documents for Northamptonshire. The index is not available on the Internet, but you can write in and get a computer print-out of entries matching your requirements, at a reasonable price.

To find this page choose England, then Northamptonshire, then Societies, and Northamptonshire FHS from this; or choose the top level UK & Ireland, then Societies, then Northamptonshire FHS.

Published indexes of names

There are thousands of indexes available for sale as publications, mainly from Family History Societies. Many societies sell their publications on line through GenFair at www.genfair.com/ , others sell by post. Example 3.8 shows the Bristol Marriages Index 1800-1837, some of the many indexes available from Bristol and Avon FHS. To see the list in GENUKI, choose England then Gloucestershire, go to the topic Societies and follow the link to Bristol & Avon FHS. Within that choose Publications. These are mainly large city parishes. If you know the parish you can get the set of microfiche for two pounds in most cases - postage about another pound - so this is an inexpensive way to get the microfiche index. But if you know you are looking in Bristol, but don't know which parish, you may do better with the search service shown in example 3.9 - for two pounds you get a search of all these 1800-1837 indexes and others back to 1754.

End of Chapter 3 of GENUKI Book by David Hawgood. Updated 17 feb 2008.

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