Gloucestershire Parish records

[Pauline]

As Peter mentions in the latest newsletter, Ancestry has recently added Gloucestershire parish register images to their site.

However, as a word of warning, although these records appear to be transcribed and indexed, some seem not to have been. I haven't yet done any broad checking, but while looking for folk in North Nibley, and not finding any of them, I discovered that North Nibley baptisms and burials for much of the 18th century do not show up in a search, even though images for these registers are there (and browseable).

I need to investigate further but I thought others might find it helpful to be aware of this now.

 

[peter]

As Peter mentions in the latest newsletter, Ancestry has recently added Gloucestershire parish register images to their site.

However, as a word of warning, although these records appear to be transcribed and indexed, some seem not to have been. I haven't yet done any broad checking, but while looking for folk in North Nibley, and not finding any of them, I discovered that North Nibley baptisms and burials for much of the 18th century do not show up in a search, even though images for these registers are there (and browseable).

I need to investigate further but I thought others might find it helpful to be aware of this now.

Thank you, Pauline - I too was looking for some North Nibley entries that I'd previously found in the IGI but didn't have time to investigate when they didn't show up (as I was working on the challenge). Perhaps you could post any discoveries you make (about coverage) in this discussion as this will help enormously when I'm writing a follow-up article for the next newsletter.

 

[Pauline]

For North Nibley, it would appear that of the pre-1812 registers listed in the Ancestry browsing drop-down, entries from those for 1720-77, 1754-77 & 1777-1812 are not showing up in a search.

However, as far I can tell, all the other North Nibley registers (before 1720, after 1812 and the post-1754 marriages) do seem to be searchable.

 

[peter]

Thanks, Pauline - it sounds as if they may simply have made a mistake. Let's see if there are any other examples.

It has also been reported by a member that the early transcriptions (16th and 17th century) are poor.

 

[Pauline]

It has also been reported by a member that the early transcriptions (16th and 17th century) are poor.

Yes, I have submitted a fair few corrections for these already, though to be fair, some of the original writing is not easy to decipher.

One thing I have been wondering about is how to submit a correction when someone has not been given a forename. For example, I have found a burial where the forename has been transcribed as "Jake". In fact the original has "A child of Jasper" - so in correcting the forename, do I leave this field blank, write in "unnamed child" or do I put "A child of Jasper" (with or without quotes)?

I noticed that in other similar examples, such as "A child of Thomas ....", the transcription just gives Thomas as the forename, but that doesn't seem quite right to me.

 

[Pauline]

Thanks, Pauline - it sounds as if they may simply have made a mistake.

I have now emailed Ancestry about this and will let you know what they say.

 

[Pauline]

I have now emailed Ancestry about this and will let you know what they say.

I have now had a reply from Ancestry, as follows:

"Thank you for contacting Ancestry in regards to some records not indexed in Gloucestershire, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1813.
You are correct that there are sections of this database that have not yet been indexed. We regret the frustration this has caused.
Some times a collection has not yet been indexed, sometimes due to damage or other reasons. However we did want to make these images available to our member's even if they are not yet searchable. For this reason we have included them with the option to browse the collection.
Thank you for your patience and understanding regarding this images that have not been indexed."

I did ask if there was a list anywhere on the website of registers which haven't been indexed but they didn't reply to that bit. However, they do at least acknowledge not all registers are indexed.

I did see on another forum that Stroud burials haven't been indexed but haven't checked this. Also, yesterday I discovered some Wotton under Edge entries that were not indexed but I think there it was just a missed page or two - I will need to check further.

 

[peter]

Unfortunately Ancestry hardly ever make it clear precisely what it's in a dataset, and at Ancestry it's not as easy to check for gaps as at Findmypast. At Findmypast you can sort the search results by date, but I don't think there's any way of doing that at Ancestry (though they're in the process of introducing a new search). Findmypast also produce a parish by parish list for many of their collections - although if there is an accidental omission the list obviously doesn't take account of it.

 

[Julien]

One register not indexed but available to trawl through is the one for Saul - it's not very long.......... I think the register was badly damaged at some time (possibly by floods) and is not easy to decipher. But the images are a vast improvement on the ones previously available on microfiche at the Archives in Gloucester. I was able to get a much better version of the entry showing the Sanders family including Benjamin (born 1650) which appeared to have been entered later, presumably because records were not kept during the Civil War.