Genealogy Chat

I already do some transcribing for FreeBMD but I've been more and more intrigued by the idea of doing some transcribing of parish registers for my own area. Has anyone been an OPC or know someone who has? Thanks, Liz.

If you do a search on the boards for Online Parish Clerk there are several old threads that might be worth a read. Maureen

Thanks :)

The threads were interesting but didnt really give me an insight into how you go about it (talk about fiche and stuff, I don't have any of those) and how much time it takes up. So any experiences from others would be helpful. Thanks.

From memory I believe that if you go to the Sussex OPC site it gives you contact details about how to volunteer.

Hi Liz, I have thought, several times, about being an OPC for the village I live in. However, there isn't an OPC scheme for my county, and although I could no doubt start one, I don't have the time unfortunately. When I contacted the FHS for the county, they basically said what's an online parish clerk? Oh dear. :-( The reason I thought about being an OPC is that about 14 years ago I transcribed all the parish registers for my village from 1595 to 1900, and put them on computer - when I finally got one. I did this by corresponding with the local studies librarian in my local town, and pursuaded him to let me borrow the PR fiche over several weekends. I collected one or two each Saturday just before closing time (it was 12pm in those days), and posted the fiche back through their letterbox before they opened on Monday morning. Being part of the reference collection, they weren't really meant to leave the library, so a lot of trust was involved on their part. Using my own fiche reader it took me about 8 weekends to do the lot. I also did the censuses, from 1841 to 1891, as this was before they were available online. In return for the favour, I gave the library a copy of the transcriptions, in alphabetical order for their local studies reference section. If you have a tame librarian, as I seemed to have, you might be able to do something similar. He was kind enough to let me borrow a reference book over the weekend not long ago, so he's a real gem! :-) Chris

I have the Lancashire OPC which covers my town, I noticed that there's an OPC for the nearby smaller towns (which were actually bigger/older/more important back in the days). There's a contact email, I just wondered how others went about the actual act of being an opc, what was involved... not so much how you get into it but what you do once you are. Chris, it sounds like you were really very lucky with your librarian. Ours are a bit pitbullish I think lol, although once we got them involved in our mystery they were a lot more helpful. It's a busy RO and open a lot, but I can't imagine myself wanting to spend so long there for doing transcribing (and I dunno if I'd be able to take my laptop as transcribing by long hand is not an option for me with my disability. I think I would have to ask in the RO but I suspect I would be met with the same response of 'what's an OPC?' lol It's obviously something I need to give a lot of thought to, the town is big now but only really grew since the 1850s. If I can find someway that it would benefit the RO as well as being useful for online, then they would probably be more amenable to helping me. Part of me thinks I should just stick with offering looks ups, but I've not had any interest from that lol. Liz