Findmypast’s project
with six Yorkshire Archives will create the most comprehensive repository of
Yorkshire family history records in the world.
The
UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has today published online for the
first time almost 4 million parish records in partnership with the Yorkshire
Digitisation Consortium. The Yorkshire
Collection comprises scanned images of the original handwritten registers held
by six Yorkshire archives, spanning the years 1538 to 1989. Fully searchable
transcripts of the originals enable anyone to go online and search for their
Yorkshire ancestors by name.
The
first phase of this landmark project, released today, includes nearly a million
parish records from North Yorkshire County Record Office, Doncaster Archives and
Local Studies, East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service, Teesside
Archives and Sheffield Archives and Local Studies, as well as over 3 million
parish records and Bishop’s Transcripts from the Borthwick Institute for
Archives (University of York), which cover the whole of Yorkshire including
West Yorkshire: http://www.findmypast.co.uk/articles/world-records/search-all-uk-records/special-collections/the-yorkshire-collection
The
records reveal not only baptisms, marriages and burials, but important aspects
of Yorkshire’s social history. For
example, the burial registers give evidence of the scale of the 1832 cholera
epidemic, in which 55,000 people in the UK died, and also details of the deaths
of soldiers in the 1645 Civil War.
These
church records also provide some unexpected insights into events in Yorkshire’s
colourful history. The parish burial register for Kirby Wiske records that on 7
July 1791, Richard Sturdy, John Cartman and Rich’d Sturdy were “poisoned by
neglect of a servant girl in making a pudding”.
The burial register for Birkin records the death of Richard Darley,
struck dead by lightning at the age of 25 on 5 June 1836, while the burial
register for Thirsk includes Thomas Lee, son of a shoemaker, whose death on
27th May 1789 aged 13 appears alongside the explanation “Died with drinking
Gin.”
A
quick look through Findmypast’s Yorkshire Collection reveals some extraordinary
names. Mary Christmas was buried in Hutton Cranswick in 1689, while Fortune
Chimney was laid to rest in Hornsea St Nicholas in 1727. The marriage register
of Bramham records the 1837 marriage of Robert Duck to Catherine Peacock.
Further
records will be released in 2015.
