Genealogy Chat

I have tried Familysearch for a birth record of Reuben Harrington born c1824 Battersea. Parents Joseph and Mary. I can find his siblings but not him. Is there anywhere else I can look him up online?

It's a drag, Glynis, but there's just no such thing as a birth record for anytime before mid-1837.

That was when there started to be official registration of births.

Before that, you have only parish records of baptisms (and sometimes they were long after birth, so you just have to hope they mention age too).

The IGI is a compilation of *some* parish records that have been transcribed and compiled -- the records there referred to as "extracted" records.

It is fairly complete for some areas, and completely useless for others. And there is spotty coverage in many cases -- records from some parishes for some time periods, no records from nearby parishes, etc.

For some counties it's virtually useless. Devon is an example. Some parishes simply did not want to hand over their info to the Mormons. Understandably. No congregation really wants to turn over its late parishioners for posthumous baptism by someone else.

One other resource on line is

http://www.familyhistoryonline.net

It's a sort of collective of various family history societies that contribute their records and make them accessible for a very small fee (registration at the site is free). Again, coverage is spotty. I would happily choke everyone in Devon who won't share that way, for instance.

Now what there are, that others here will be able to tell you about, are various collections of county records on line. I'm in Canada, and they don't seem to relate to any counties that interest me, so I'm useless on those resources. I'm sure someone else will come along when it's daylight in that part of the world and tell you more.

I suspect your area is one of the black holes. You can join the club. ;)

It seems that Surrey doesn't even have On-line Parish Clerks:

http://homepages.gold.ac.uk/genuki/SRY/

but that site does link to the London Metropolitan Archives for records.

Essex is another one with very patchy coverage on the IGI - I think a lot of records for Essex on there are just submitted ones.

And I have been told that the Roman Catholics on the whole refused to pass their information on to the Mormons - as Kathryn says, it seems unlikely that many faiths would pass on what they had, knowing that the Mormons would posthumously make those people members of their church.

This is why, for instance, I can get the parish records for St Michael's church in Aughton (where my ancestors were baptised and buried and married) on familysearch - because it's C of E, but I cannot get records on there for St. Mary's in Aughton because it's Catholic.

I have a handful of people in my tree who were very religious - including a Catholic priest and a number of Independent Primitive Methodist preachers (apparently one of my direct ancestors was in the group that broke away to form the Independent branch) so I wonder what they would think about becoming Mormons after death.

Thanks very much for your input everyone. I guess I will have to get around to visiting the church in Battersea where Reuben's siblings were registered or hope I may contact someone else who has followed the same research and has info about him.