Norfolk Family History Society Coat of Arms

Norfolk Parish Register Transcription Project

History of the Transcription Project

This project began in 1994 and aimed at providing transcripts of parish church registers for Norfolk parishes the period 1813 – 1837.  The Parish Transcription project aims to cover all types of registers, from baptisms to burials, marriages and banns.

The project has expanded the collection of parish register transcripts available to Members considerably. The energy and enthusiasm of transcribers has resulted in a much wider span of years being tackled than originally envisaged and the has expanded the Society’s collection of parish register transcripts. in the majority of parishes we now have transcripts in booklet form relating to parts of the parish registers for nearly 400 Norfolk parishes. It is estimated that this equates to roughly half the total of Norfolk's 719 historic parishes.

Volunteers originally worked from microfiche loaned by the Norfolk Family History Society and followed formatting guidelines to produce clear and uniform baptism, marriage, banns and burial transcripts which were originally spiral-bound into booklets, but are now being put into rigid cloth cover, steel gripped, binders and upgraded to cover extra years, in some cases beyond 1900.


Challenges

The huge number of parish records to be transcribed makes this project a challenge. Wide gaps in coverage still exist for some norfolk parish registers, reflecting the situation where, for example, baptisms and burials have been transcribed but other registers (typically banns) have not been transcribed. Similary, some parish register transcriptions have gaps in the period covered or have failed to cover the early records. This is being addressed as and when the opportunity presents.

An ever-changing environment, especially the Internet, and the limitations of voluntary input, has made the Project difficult to administer. Responding to demands in one area often leads to significant delays in others. In taking on the Parish Register Transcription project, the Society decided we should concentrate on completing the baptism, marriage, banns and burial records for Norwich Parishes. This is well in hand, some Norwich Parishes are close to printing, subject to final items being submitted, others are taking longer due to poor condition of the records and required cross-checking. Nevertheless, the overall direction is forwards.


Accessing the Parish Register Transcripts

Manuscript and typed methods of recording have been replaced almost entirely by computers. This technology is ideal for the purpose of compiling transcripts, but has added complexities, due to the variety of software programs used, both historically and by volunteers who kindly provide transcripts. A great deal of work has been undertaken to standardise the page design (based on templates in Excel) to suit the four books required to cover printed copies of the Parish Register Transcripts.

The Transcripts are available for viewing at Kirby Hall and to some extent, via the Research Team, to every member. We are unable to provide copies of Parish Register Transcripts for members who cannot get to the Society's Kirby Hall library as the task is beyond our physical resources. There are a few exceptions, known as the Monograph Series, (30 Norfolk Parishes) these booklets cover the period 1558-1813 and can be purchased from the Bookshop. This comprises the computerisation of past transcription work for which no computer data exists - basically the old booklet collection and some early transcriptions at Kirby Hall. This is a mammoth task certain to take many years and fraught with all the difficulties of working with material which is in constant demand. As some of you are aware the Monograph series is in a type face which is not pleasing to the reader’s eye; these are being changed into a more up to date font, assistance is needed with this work as well.


Recent Developments

Holding the transcripts in electronic format are producing tangible benefits in terms of manipulation of data and the ability to search records. Our Parish Register Transcripts officer, Malcolm Cole-Wilkins, has produce an innovative tool for searching Surnames extracted from individual parish transcripts. This PRT Surname tool, together with electronic copies of the parish transcripts are now available on 4 computers at Kirby Hall for visitors to use. This is in addition to the bound copies of transcripts of baptisms, marriages, burials and banns available in the Society's library.

Work is currently underway (2008/early 2009) to develop an Archive Search Utility which permits users perform a radial search of contiguous parishes on entering a surname and base parish. The format and some of the technology is based on the original Parish Locator program. Our thanks go to Derek Smith for his hard work in developing this project.

Data entry and testing of an web-based database is also currently ongoing. At present (March 2009) certain functionality issues are being investigated with a view to locking-down data access for members. Once resolved, the Norfolk Family History Society website will allow members to access parish transcripts online. It is expected to release the database for members use in the 3rd quarter of 2009.


A Note on Accuracy

We apply the usual caveat that all transcripts must only be regarded as Aids to Further Research and never assumed to be entirely accurate. Researchers using them are reminded that, in general, they have not been double-checked. Norfolk has something like 760 parishes, about half remain to be done. The completed booklets already occupy perhaps 30 square feet of shelving in Kirby Hall library and simply maintaining them in reasonable condition for visiting members is as much as the existing volunteers can be expected to achieve. The systematic checking of such a huge flow of transcripts against the original parish registers has never been regarded as feasible, instead we have relied upon transcribers who have demonstrated a careful and diligent approach to their work coupled with random sample checks. The majority of parish register transcripts are either indexed, chronologically or alphabetically sorted, and have become a very useful and popular asset.

NOTE

To avoid disappointment, anyone contemplating making a special journey to view the Parish Register collection should:

before setting out. At any one time a number of parish transcripts are absent from the shelves while being upgraded.