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People in Worcestershire trying to find out more about their family roots could be helped by the launch of a new area on the Church of England website. The site provides invaluable help and advice for anyone looking into their family history, for example, where to find the written records of births, marriages and deaths that have traditionally been held by parish churches.
The idea of setting up the area was initiated by Revd Frances Wookey, vicar of Hanley Castle, Hanley Swan and Welland. “As parish priests, we are regularly contacted by people who are tracing their family tree and the interest in this area continues to grow,” she said. “The Church of England holds a great deal of information that would be useful for individuals investigating their roots and I felt we needed to make more effort to make it available. This new site does just that and hopefully enables people to move forward with their search.”
The Church of England’s new pages explain that prior to 1837 there was no central registration of births, marriages and deaths in England, and therefore parish registers are the main source of information for establishing the facts of such events during this period. These registers, along with ‘Bishops transcripts’ which can help fill in the gaps, are usually held in local or county record offices, but parish registers are sometimes still held by local parish churches. The pages point researchers to sources that can help identify where these records may now be held.
After 1837, when centralised records began to be kept, the Church still maintained records of births, marriages and funerals, and the pages sketch out how researchers might go about exploring this history.
The pages can be accessed at: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/about/librariesandarchives/familyhistory/index.html
ENDS.
The Diocese of Worcester is one of 44 dioceses in the Church of England. It covers an area of 671 square miles and includes parishes in the County of Worcestershire, the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, and a few parishes in northern Gloucestershire, south east Wolverhampton and Sandwell.
