FFHS-NEWS findmypast.com adds 3.2 million parish marriages

[News from the Federation of Family History Societies]

					FINDMYPAST.COM EXTENDS ONLINE PARISH
RECORDS COLLECTION 

	Online access to millions of nationwide parish marriage records pre
-dating the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths 

UK family history website findmypast.com have added 3.2 million marriage
records to its Parish Records Collection at
<http://www.findmypast.com/parish-records-collection-search-start.action?red
ef=0>.  The new parish records, dating back to 1538, join the 15 million
burial records already available to search on the site. 

The Parish Records Collection brings together in one easy-to-search central
place the disparate records from local parishes, which have been collated by
local family history societies since 1911, coordinated by the Federation of
Family History Societies. 

The registers are particularly valuable sources of information for people
seeking to research their family tree back further than the civil records of
birth, marriage and death, which began in 1837, and the nineteenth century
censuses. 

Thanks to the cross-database search facility at findmypast.com, you will be
able to search for your ancestor by surname across all the parish records on
the site without needing to know where in the country they came from,
helping people to delve even deeper into their ancestors' pasts.

Among the famous names recorded in the parish marriages is writer Charles
John Huffam Dickens, whose marriage to Catherine Thomson Hogarth took place
in Chelsea on 2 April 1836, just one year prior to civil registration in
England and Wales.  In the same year, on 5 July, engineer Isambard Kingdom
Brunel's marriage to Mary Elizabeth Horsley is shown in Kensington. Both
records have been contributed by the West Middlesex Family History Society.

Over the coming months findmypast.com will be adding parish baptism records
to the website too.

Maggie Loughran 
Joint Administrator, Federation of Family History Societies 
Email: admin at ffhs.org.uk 
www.ffhs.org.uk