Genealogy Chat

Thanks mgnv. My own family have no Staffs connections, but my husband's come from the current Sandwell area, so will take a look at that.
Cheers.
Jan

Thanks all - I have been wanting to know about Familysearch Pilot and Beta search for a while

Now I understand

Irene

Jan - A bit off-topic, but are you familiar with the local BMD indices online

Staffs (some mum's MS and age at death back to 1837):
http://www.staffordshirebmd.org.uk/

Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell/West Bromwich:
http://www.westmidlandsbmd.org.uk/

Warwick
http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/corporate/pages.nsf/Pages%20by%20Department/1057E57E886DA0228025738500453B29

http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/registeroffice
Slightly different is Birmingham RO, who say:
Where ever possible for family tree research, we will provide a digital scan of the original register entry.
Also, they don't have an online local index, but say they'll accept the GRO index ref. I presume they have in-house cheat sheets, so if the GRO entries for Birmingham cover pages 201-320, they know the entries for All Saints begin on 201, Ladywood on 212,... St. Thomas on 307 or somesuch, thus they can take the GRO ref, and know which sub-district register has the entry of interest - but I'm only guessing.

Now that's useful to know for me re. Warwickshire as a lot of my ancestors are from there - thanks for that snippet mgnv.
Jan

There's a large egree of overlap between the beta & pilot sites, but they're not the same and neither is a subset of the other. As far as England/UK is concerned, the beta lacks 3 collections the pilot has:

England, Diocese of Durham Bishops' Transcriptions ca,1700-1900 (images only)
England, Norfolk Parish Registers, 1538-1900
England, Cornwall Parish Registers, 1538-1900

The pilot lacks:
England, Warwickshire Parish Registers, 1538-1900
which the beta has.

FamilySearch is looking for volunteers to transcribe for them.

www.familysearch.org/eng/indexing/frameset_indexing.asp

I know what you mean but being a non-profit organisation they probably can't afford to buy all the censuses and transcribe them all themselves.

Maybe they should do a deal with Ancestry and The Genealogist too so that when you click through for an image you could select the one that links to the site where you have a subscription.

Mark.

SatNav, the LDS only own a copy of the 1881 census transcription which they did so they are linking through to FindMyPast for the other census records. I think the 1881 census links through too to get the images. I have seen these come up on both pilot and beta and I can't see the difference between the two sites.

I haven't seen any footnote.com links as yet - what sort of information do they contain?

Mark.

I must just say that some submitted entries are bona fide as I have discovered with great pleasure, and some submitters do live in the UK :-)

Hi again Just popped back for a look and I see you've all been busy! Thanks for the replies & info everyone.
Jan

Hi Madmeg,

I have found on the Beta site some images of newspaper cuttings which aren't available on the normal Lds site.

Gai

The new beta site is for the information they are currently scanning and I believe eventually this should take over from the existing Familysearch site.

The site covers civil registrations as well as parish records
I have found civil registrations for my fathers and siblings births on there as well as others for my grandmothers 2 brothers and their families in the Channel Islands giving the town they were born in but no addresses
When I looked at the LDS film that contained what I thought would be the baptisms of the two brothers I was mistaken. It proved to be the civil registration and their names and address which I already knew

And can anyone tell me if there is any difference between these and the Beta site:

http://fsbeta.familysearch.org/

EDIT - that IS the same site, is it? I thought there were two of them. Am I just a noddy?

Yes, they do need a fresh start as the submitted results are hopeless. However, the results from a test search were not encouraging: for baptisms they have omitted the parish names and merely given the county. Do the transcribers know nothing about Britain?

Peter

Thanks Satnav!
Jan

It is parish records only whereas the IGI has submitted records as well.
I guess they thought a fresh start was the best way forward.

Quick query please!
I have used this, but to ask a dumb question - apart from appearance what is the difference to the original site?
Thanks
Jan