I recently had an e-mail query about where to find a marriage that was not in the International Genealogical Index (IGI), and thought it might be a good idea to post my reply here as well.
Unfortunately, not all parish records are online, or even indexed in county record offices.
Free websites
The parish records of several counties are being indexed, however, and being made available online through free Online Parish Clerk (OPC) websites. At www.onlineparishclerks.org.uk, you can find links to the OPC sites for Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Somerset, Sussex, Warwickshire and Wiltshire. Some of these counties (such as Cornwall) have indexed far more parishes than others (such as Wiltshire).
There are also some other sites, such as Forest of Dean Family History www.forest-of-dean.net/fodmembers/index.php (which covers the Forest of Dean area of Gloucestershire, as well as neighbouring parishes in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire), the Cheshire Parish Register Project www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~cprdb, the Norfolk Baptism Project http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tinstaafl, Cumberland and Westmorland Archives www.cumberlandarchives.co.uk, and the South Derbyshire Genealogy Pages http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~brett/sdindex.htm.
The FamilySearch Record Search Pilot Site http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=0 has indexed images of baptisms, marriages and burials in Cheshire from 1538-1907, as well as unindexed images of the Bishop’s Transcripts for the Diocese of Durham (including Northumberland, County Durham and parts of Yorkshire and Cumberland).
In addition, the FreeReg Project http://freereg.rootsweb.com is creating an index of parish register births, marriages and deaths in England, Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Man. The index currently contains about 6.7 million entries.
Pay-per-view websites
Durham Records Online www.durhamrecordsonline.com is a pay-per-view website covering County Durham and parts of Northumberland and North Yorkshire. ParishRegister.com www.parishregister.com is a pay-per-view website covering East London.
Many Non-conformist registers for England and Wales have been digitised and are online at the pay-per-view site BMD Registers www.bmdregisters.co.uk.
Scottish parish registers are at ScotlandsPeople www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk, where you can view the digitised baptisms and marriages (burials to follow shortly). Most Scottish baptisms and marriages are also in the IGI.
You can find church registers for most Irish counties indexed at the Irish Family History Foundation’s Online Record Search System http://ifhf.brsgenealogy.com/index.php?&set=yes.
Family history societies
If none of these websites has the information you’re looking for, there are also indexes compiled by family history societies (FHS). Many of these indexes are available on CD, and if not, then you can send a query to the society (although you may have to join). You can find links to the English and Welsh FHS websites at www.ffhs.org.uk.
If you still can’t find the information you want, then for England and Wales, you’ll have to go to the appropriate county record office (or the National Library of Wales for some Welsh parishes) and look at the relevant parish register (if you know which county and parish the event took place in). The record office may look up the entry you’re interested in, if you can provide an approximate date and parish (although this may be what you’re trying to find out).
Alan
nice references..
Hi from Wexford, very good post, deserves a Digg.
Just thought I would add a plug our site as the data contained is unique for the period before 1837. On comparing our data with the IGI there is an incredible error rate on that massive resource and we feel it is about time that people have access to more accurate data. It is a paid service, but that is justified by the time it has take to collate the records. Please check out the Joiner Marriage Index.
Great blog by the way, good marketing!! ;)