SOUTH-WEST

Bristol, the Channel Islands, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, the Isles of Scilly, Somerset and Wiltshire

ANCESTRY £ w ancestry.co.uk

Last year, Ancestry announced a new partnership with Bristol Archives. Its collections from the city now stand at over 2.3 million 1538–1812 records; over 2.2 million 1813–1918 baptisms; nearly 1.2 million 1754–1935 marriages and banns; almost 370,000 burials from 1813–1994; and more than 400,000 nonconformist records from 1644–1981. For Gloucestershire, there are nearly five million 1538–1813 records, and post1813, over five million baptisms, nearly 1.5 million marriages and banns, 14,000 confirmations and nearly 825,000 burials. It also has over nine million records for Somerset, over six million for Wiltshire, over 900,000 for Jersey and 339,000 for

Cornwall.

CORNWALL ONLINE PARISH CLERKS (OPC) w cornwall-opc-database.org/home

Cornwall OPC has continued to grow in the past year and now stands at 1,542,198 baptisms; 77,435 banns; 22,323 marriage allegations; 492,157 marriages; and 1,270,722 burials.

CORNWALL PARISH REGISTER INDEX w cornwalleng.com

This website is another good source for Cornish parish records.

DORSET OPC w opcdorset.org

This website offers coverage of 291 parishes from Dorset.

FAMILYSEARCH w familysearch.org

Find major collections from Dorset (including 27,117 online images) and Cornwall (with 202,325 images), plus indexed records for Bristol churches up to 1900.

FHS- ONLINE £ w fhs-online.co.uk

FHS-Online offers paid access to local family history societies’ parish register transcriptions, including records for Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset.

FINDMYPAST £ w findmypast.co.uk

The site’s extensive collection of Devonshire records from Plymouth and West Devon Record Office includes parish records with images of the original registers. It also has transcribed records from Gloucestershire, Bristol, Wiltshire, Dorset and the Channel Islands, as well as coverage of more than 300 Cornwall parishes. In addition, the site recently added more than 536,000 marriage licences from 1115–1906 covering 15 counties, including Devon, Gloucestershire and Somerset.

FREEREG w freereg.org.uk

FreeREG volunteers continue to transcribe records in this area. Currently there are 3,728,579 records for Somerset, 2,377,660 for Cornwall, 458,381 for Devon, 232,487 for Dorset and 135,929 for Wiltshire, together with 20,634 Jersey records.

THEGENEALOGIST £ w thegenealogist.co.uk

Some transcriptions of Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire records.

WILTSHIRE OPC w wiltshire-opc.org.uk/genealogy

The Wiltshire OPC Project began in 2006, and has various records for Wiltshire parishes including Church of England records.