DedhamOver 2,000 baptism transcriptions from Dedham's earliest register (1560-1620) now online. Find Bridget Starling, who went on to be the mother of Sir Thomas Bowes (see below), and meet two illegitimate children, both called Repent (well, Dedham was known for being a puritan hotspot!). Marriages for this period have already been transcribed, and burials are on the way. Marriages 1813-1837 have also been transcribed for Dedham.
Salcott Baptisms 1813-1837 now available, along with burials for the same period.
Weeley The earliest register available for this parish has now been transcribed. That's over 500 baptisms for the period 1560-1673, over 600 burials and nearly 200 marriages. Please be aware that there are several gaps in the original register.
Mistley and Brightlingsea There are already some transcriptions at Essex & Suffolk Surnames for these parishes, but I've started from the earliest available registers and am busy transcribing them. Mistley's start in 1559 and Brightlingsea's in 1697. There are no spreadsheets online yet, but you can start to search them at FreeREG as I progress.
Blog
Was your ancestor married by a witchfinder? Notes in Weeley's earliest register show that Sir Thomas Bowes, the Justice of the Peace who worked alongside Matthew Hopkins, was performing marriages for Weeley's locals during the Commonwealth Period. In this blog post, I'm looking at civil marriages in this period, and the rather intriguing fact that the people of Weeley were subtly subverting the Puritan law.
Advertising
You might spot some adverts in the right-hand column on Essex & Suffolk Surnames. One's for the British Newspaper Archive, as it's a fantastic resource which I use a lot, and the other is for Twining's tea, because I drink it while researching my family tree! I'm trying to keep the advertising unobtrusive and relevant, and it's only there to help pay for the web-hosting costs of the site. I've already included Amazon links to specific items which I write about in my blog. Don't worry, I'm not going to use Google Adwords, which put ads on the site which reflect your recent browsing history, as I find them quite annoying!
History news
Forces War Records have released 5,000 records of nurses in The Territorial Force Nursing Service, who won medals during WW1. The records were thought to have been lost, but have been rediscovered.
German parish registers. For those of you with ancestry further afield, find out about Archion, a new website which provides genealogists with scans of German parish registers. Ausgezeichnet!
1939 Register If you've ever wondered what's involved with preparing old records to go online, then you should see this short video made by Find My Past (links to Youtube). It shows their conservation work on this important set of records, and their scanning and digitisation of them. All but one person in the above photo appears in the 1939 Register, and I'm hoping it'll help to place various aunts, uncles and cousins of my grandparents. It's going to be extremely interesting!
