Partnership publishes parish records
Historic parish records from three English counties have been released online thanks to a partnership between local family history societies, thegenealogist.co.uk and fhs-online.co.uk.
The websites, which are accessible to paying subscribers, have published records of 2.2 million individuals compiled by Somerset & Dorset Family History Society.
The new collection consists of burial and crematorium records dating from 1563 to 2003, as well as Somerset baptism records from 1538 to 1996.
Mark Bayley, head of online development at TheGenealogist, said that such partnerships “help societies boost their funds whilst bringing their records to a much wider audience, through online publication”.
TheGenealogist and FHS-Online have also added over 1.1 million Sussex parish records from a database created by The Parish Record Transcription Society, including 717,000 baptism records, 213,000 marriages and 208,000 burials. They include some dramatic stories such as that of Richard Hawkins, buried in Parham on 22 April 1748 after being “Murdered By Smugglers & Thrown Into Sir Cecil Bisshopps Pond”.