Suffolk surnames

[Susan48]

The essexandsuffolksurnames website is a useful resource for anyone with ancestors in either or both of those counties. Volunteers are transcribing parish registers as an ongoing project and the transcriptions are uploaded onto FreeReg, but the website will tell you precisely which parishes have been done. There is a lot of other useful information, as well as a blog. Highly recommended.

 

[John Dancy]

Thanks Susan, both myself and my wife have quite complicated Sussex and Essex roots

 

[peter]

Essex registers have already been transcribed by Ancestry, and most Suffolk registers have been transcribed by members of Suffolk FHS - the coverage of their CD ROMs far exceeds what Findmypast have available, even though they have sourced most of their Suffolk data from the FHS.

Unfortunately it can get expensive buying CD ROMs - I have spent over £100 in the Suffolk FHS shop over the past couple of years, even so my collection only covers a small part of the county. The good news for those of us with Suffolk ancestors is that Ancestry will be putting the registers online, though I'm still waiting to find out the timescale.

 

[Stuart]

Unfortunately it can get expensive buying CD ROMs - I have spent over £100 in the Suffolk FHS shop over the past couple of years, even so my collection only covers a small part of the county. The good news for those of us with Suffolk ancestors is that Ancestry will be putting the registers online, though I'm still waiting to find out the timescale.

The contract starts this month and runs to the end of June 2029. I guess that's the end of Ancestry's period of exclusive rights to market images, in which case they'll need to do the photography and indexing pretty quickly. Details here.

 

[peter]

I guess that's the end of Ancestry's period of exclusive rights to market images

Quite possibly, but I'm still waiting for the procurement manager at Suffolk County Council to get back to me with confirmation (I've just sent him a reminder).

 

[Susan48]

I wonder how comprehensive the coverage will be? There are a large number of parishes.

 

[peter]

I wonder how comprehensive the coverage will be? There are a large number of parishes.

I'd expect them to be aiming for 100% coverage, as they have done in other counties.

 

[peter]

I have now have confirmation that the Suffolk images should be online at Ancestry during 2025.