Parish Records Project Progress

As I reported last time the Forest of Dean transcription project is nearing completion. All the available Gloucestershire & Monmouthshire parish registers have now been included in the database, but there are still a few Herefordshire registers to photograph and transcribe before the task is complete. Having said that, the project will never be totally finished as new registers are being received by the Record Offices all the time.

We are also well advanced with the job of comparing the pre-1812 Bishops Transcripts with the Parish Registers and noting any additions. This task will continue for the foreseeable future.

Number of Parish Records Transcribed

Main Database
Baptisms:           421,216
Burials:            323,270
Marriages:          119,910
Total               864,396

Privacy Database
Baptisms:           46,740
Burials:             1,005
Marriages:          16,419
Total:              64,164

Grand Total        928,468

Parish Records Recent Additions and Updates

New Additions, July 2011 and Updates

You can view an up-to-date list of transcribed records which consists of all the parish records which have been transcribed and what records are currently in progress of being transcribed. The list also contains the names of over one hundred volunteer transcibers who have made this project possible.

Marriage Licences & Allegations

Our next project will be to transcribe the Marriage Licences & Allegations for the whole of Gloucestershire. This is being done in partnership with Gloucestershire Archives (GA) thus enabling us to get free camera licences and avoid the laborious problem of sorting out the Forest of Dean licences & allegations from the rest. These licences & allegations contain additional information such as the ages and occupations of the Bride and Groom and also their parentage if they are under age, so they are very useful for pre-1837 marriages.

At the request of GA we are starting with the Marriage Allegations which run from 1747 to 1837, these don`t contain quite as much additional information as the Licences, but will nevertheless be a useful addition.

As this project covers the whole of Gloucestershire, Dave has decided to set up a new Marriage Licence/Allegation database which should start to appear in a few months time.

Free Miners and Quarrymen

During a recent visit to Gloucester we photographed the lists of Free Miners and Quarrymen. These have been transcribed for us by May Brace and should appear on the website very soon.

Memorial Inscription

Currently we have two Memorial Inscription projects in progress. Abenhall Parish Church and Ruardean Hill Baptist Chapel which are b eing transcribed by David Drinkwater and May Brace, respectively. These projects when completed will also contain photos of the gravestones.

Forest of Dean Wills Index 1858-1941

The Index which was put together by David Drinkwater and was completed some time ago, it consists of 8,416 Wills & Administrations of Forest of Dean people.

Glenn & Lynne Robertson are currently extracting the names of the other people that are mentioned in the Wills. So far the names of the 'Beneficiaries and Others' have been extracted from the Wills between 1858-1915 and put into the database, as more names are extracted the database will be updated.

Forest of Dean Wills Index

Enjoy your research using this wonderful website.

Graham Davison
Project Coordinator

Photo Gallery

New Additions

Check out the Photo Gallery where you can view a huge collection of old photographs of people and places of the Forest of Dean.

Documents and Articles

New Additions

A number of interesting Documents and Articles including:

Some Gloucester Regiment Soldiers 1915-1918
Anzacs born in the Forest of Dean
Foresters in the County Asylum
Coleford War Memorial Roll of Honour
Ruardean Churchyard Burial Layout
Lydney Grammar School Newsletter c1973

• Bigland Transcripts
• eBooks
• Miscellaneous Documents
• Newspaper Clippings
• Stories and Articless
• Wills & Adoms

Donations

To show your appreciation for all the free material on the website please consider making a donation. We are always pleased to receive a donations no matter how big or small.
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