Manchester Parish Records a new and exciting online resource

Now as much as I enjoy sitting in Central Library looking at the microfilms of our parish records, I have to say that the Archives and Local Studies service have just made it that bit easier because they have teamed up with Ancestry to make all of these records available on line.

They include
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1541-1812
Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915
Marriages and Banns, 1754-1930
Deaths and Burials, 1813-1985
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1573-1812 (Cathedral)
Births and Baptisms, 1813-1901 (Cathedral)
Marriages and Banns, 1754-1930 (Cathedral)
Deaths and Burials, 1813-1866 (Cathedral)

A couple of years back they had worked with findmypast to digitalise the Manchester Collection which is a series of school board, workhouse, industrial school and prison records held by Manchester Archives.

The collection is completely free to use from any Manchester Libraries computer  but access to details and images from home is by credit or subscription.

These records comprise:
Apprentice indentures - 690 names, ranging from 1700-1849
Cemetery records - around 175,000 names: 1750-1968
Industrial school admission and discharge registers: almost 6,000 records c1866-1912
Parish register transcripts - almost 200,000 names dating back to the sixteenth century for Oldham St. Mary and churches in Gorton, Newton and Flixton
Prison registers - 247,765 records covering 1847-1881
School admission registers - around 158,000 records c1870-1916
Workhouse registers - 357,000 admission registers, 280,000 creed registers, 16,000 discharge registers.

This earlier online resource was itself pretty exciting but if like me you had signed up to Ancestry it was always a bit of a fad to either buy the credits or contemplate a second subscription.

Now I am a little further forward with the linkup with Ancestry.

And one of the other things I really like about the Ancestry platform is the way that all the records of are available, so you can trawl across a whole year’s entries which give a context to individual record that you are searching for.

There will be the purists who object, citing quite rightly that nothing is better than holding the original document, which is fine if you can get to the document easily and obtain permission to handle it, but if not online searches are the most practical and empowering tool.

And the ancestry platform does provide a pretty good reproduction of the original source and judging by what I have seen to date is far clearer than many of the microfilm versions I have had to squint at.

So all credit to the Archives and Local Studies service along with Ancestry.

Pictures; St Clements Church circa 1860 from the collection of Tony Walker and gravestone from our parish church from the collection of Andrew Simpson