Parish Registers

[scatty mare]

I've traced my family back to the 1841 census (from the comfort of my armchair, mostly) and am a bit daunted by searching parish registers - I live in London and will need to visit Yorkshire to research further. Any tips?

[dot.hawkes]

Yorkshire is fairly well covered by the International genealogical index (IGI) that was compiled by the LDS Church many years ago. Go to this site:
http://www.familysearch.org/
put a name u need in, then when it comes up, look to the left and find how many results from the IGI, click on that, the Ancestral File is all part of the Mormon research, it is the IGi that is the original transcibed records.
Many counties are virtually comlete, Chesjire was very poor for ages, never actually checked if the Bishop allowed them to be done since about 1995.
hopefully the index will give u enough info to identify yor family, then you can compile the links, if you need to actually look at the original (primary) source, the LDS church has filmed copies of many of the registers, you can visit their library in London to do that.
the IGI by the way, contains Christenings (C) and Marriages (M) from 1537 (where a Parish existed) up to about the 1920s.
The index is by county, then alphabetical by surname (variants are grouped together) and within each name, chronologically by event starting with the earliest, if you search online however, it is more efficient.

[scatty mare]

Thanks very much, Dot! I've put my bicycle back in the shed for now. It all seemed bit bewildering trying to find info pre-1837, and you've been a great help. I've had a quick look and found a Christening which has given me another lead!

[dot.hawkes]

hey scatty, pre 1837 is my speciality lol if you need any info on Wills (pre 1858) OR quarter sessions let me know. Don't forget to check out the yorkshire family history societies, there are several, go to the Federation of family History societies website

[scatty mare]

Thanks again! The familysearch.org site's a great source of information, and I've only just found out the local Family History Centre is just a few miles away in South Kensington, so that will be my next port of call once I've got a few more reference numbers together. You're a star!