Mistley I have very nearly finished the earliest register, from 1559-1696. Baptisms and burials are online, and marriages will be ready next week. It's timely because the register includes the 1647 burial of Matthew Hopkins, witchfinder general - look out for my Hallowe'en special blog at the end of the month where I'll share some very interesting finds from the register with you, which explain just what Hopkins was doing in Mistley when he started his campaign.
Great Bentley and Little Bentley Over 700 marriages 1754-1812 have been transcribed for these parishes. Little Bentley baptisms 1813-1883 have been transcribed too.
Brightlingsea All the baptisms from the earliest surviving register have been transcribed - that's from 1697-1812, nearly 3,000 baptisms in all. Burials 1698-1764 are also online, and the remainder from that register, up to 1812, plus marriages 1754-1837, are on their way.
Pre-1841 censuses Essex seems have to more surviving pre-1841 censuses than any other county. They don't include as much information as later censuses, but where they survive they can still be useful and are worth consulting if there's one for a village when you ancestor was living there. We're really lucky to have Edwin Furnival's transcriptions for several villages in the Hinckford Hundred in the north of Essex, covering Foxearth, Tilbury-juxta-Clare and Toppesfield, and he's included confirmations from Wickham St. Paul's too. Edwin transcribes for FreeREG as well so I'm really pleased that Edwin's parish register transcriptions will be appearing at Essex & Suffolk Surnames to, starting with Ashen.
Blog
Look out for some new blogs in the next few weeks - the Hopkins Hallowe'en special, and more parish register finds for Black History Month.
Colchester history
Interesting in Colchester The name of this site should tell you all need to know - it's a collection of interesting historical facts from the ancient Essex town. A fantastic local history site.
