Welcome to Paul’s Genealogy Blogspot – My background in Genealogy

Since I have just retired Toby thought it might be a good thing if I started to share some of my thoughts with you on this blog. The idea is that I should contribute something of note to genealogists on a semi-regular basis.  I hope it may prove slightly interesting to you.  Any feedback, or debate, would be greatly appreciated.

I started the database way back in the mid 1970s when I was starting out on my genealogical journey and got a bit stuck with my family while living some 200 miles from their main area of the Hertfordshire-Buckinghamshire borders.  I helped to start the Cleveland Family History Society and thought that I might create something of an index similar to Boyd for the southern part of County Durham which seemed particularly poorly served by him.

I had access to the original parish registers during my lunch hour every week in Durham CRO whilst travelling around the north east in my line of business.  The easiest start seemed to be to fill the gaps between the end of most of Boyd’s coverage in 1812 and the start of General Registration in 1837.  I was transcribing the registers into reporters’ notebooks and then transferring and indexing the entries onto scrap computer punch cards. The first manifestation of the Joiner Marriage Index was as three handwritten indexes for County Durham 1813-1837.  I believe those indexes are still available at both Durham County Record Office and Cleveland Archives.

At about the same time Bill Rounce and Geoff Nicholson were also starting similar projects on their own separate initiatives.  We informally agreed to split up County Durham into our own areas of interest to avoid duplication of effort. Geoff took the far north west around Muggleswick and Bill took the north east of the county.  I worked away on the south since I live down that way. I was also involved in typing up a copy of the registers in the Middleton in Teesdale area for Major Kenyon Fuller and the Society of Genealogists (SoG).  As my index developed, and computers came into more general use, it migrated onto electronic media and I amalgamated Bill and Geoff’s work into an overall index for County Durham.

Having received a good response from record offices I started to extend the index back to 1800, then 1754 and finally any dates I could get hold of – I am an inveterate counter and collector!  Once Durham was nearing completion (!) I decided to start with the old North Riding of Yorkshire, given the proximity of NYCRO at Northallerton.  From there the database took on a life of its own.  The availability of printed parish registers in electronic format was a great assistance in the growth of the number of parishes.  Using these sources Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire appeared relatively quickly.

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