Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Does anyone know why there are so many missing records from Ancestry's Liverpool C of E collection? There's absolutely nothing for one of Liverpool's main churches St Mary's Walton formerly the Liverpool area's parish church. If I can stand in Walton church on an Open Day looking at selected pages from original registers in glass cases why can't they go online?


Blue

Did you enquire whether the church had given permission for them to be made available by Ancestry?

Is that the reason Mary? Do you think they refused permission? It's not just Walton there's lots of missing records. Can't the L&SWL FHS query this with the council? The council were supposed to have put their records up via Ancestry so people could get easier access to these records via Ancestry at Liverpool libraries.


Blue

There are many churches who haven't allowed their records to be uploaded, another I know of is Childwall All Saints, if the vicar says no then I'm not sure there is anything that can be done.

Not sure either that it is a matter that the Society would have any luck with, as it would be between Ancestry and probably the Record Office who I think would hand the films over, but why not send in a letter to the Journal and see if anybody else has more thoughts or answers?

The refusal of churches doesn't explain gaps like these:-

Liverpool Parish church St Peters CE on Ancestry

Bap/Mar/Bur: 1754-1812

Baptisms: 1839-1901 (1813-1838? 1902-1919?)

Marriages: 1813-1844 & 1907-1919 (1845-1906?)

Burials: 1813-1853



Blue

There is a possible reason in that I know the records for St Peters C 1907 (actually I thought it was a little earlier than that missing, but can't find out which I searched for now) had not been filmed, and we need to view them in document form in the archives.

If this is the case then even the Record Office don't have them available for Ancestry to use - Ancestry don't film them themselves, just take/borrow/hire or whatever from the Record Office to transcribe from and upload.

I suppose the people to ask would be Ancestry, but cynical person that I am I am suspecting that you won't get a satisfactory answer, my belief is that they will merely say that what they have uploaded is what there is, they will not be interested in completeness, just in getting their subs.

I am thankful for the additional assistance of the LancashireBMD project as if say, a marriage, is detailed on there as being in a certain church, then I can double check online, secondly check for the existence of a film at the Record Office and lastly order it in the Archives.

I think I have answered this before. Ancestry have the records that were given over to them about 4 years ago now I think. They made available what their team of indexers had completed and we know there are huge gaps. St. Peter's being one of them. Also St. Mary's Kirkdale has not been indexed at all. I do know the Manager did send a query asking why all the records were not available as they have had them for quite a while now. I think that they indexed so much of the records and something more urgent came up that needed indexing (War Records) and they put the Liverpool Records on the back burner. I know they have not completed the WO 372 Medal cards as I can find entries for the soldiers on the National Archives but not on Ancestry.

I'll pass your query on to the Manager and see if he has a update.

Ancestry also have the Crew Lists that were at Liverpool. They have been scanned by them as the records are now back at Liverpool and they are not available yet. Too many fingers in other Records.

Thank you Katie, you have more information than my suppositions.

Thanks for the info & updates etc. I've edited my St Peter's post as originally it showed what was on Ancestry the gaps are now indicated in the brackets. It's really frustrating that a lot of records are not available. The Liverpool Workhouse records would also be a welcome addition to the Ancestry collection.


Blue

Just checking my certificates I have a marriage certificate from 1858 from St. Peter's it's the Liverpool image rather than GRO as it was one of the early ones I bought (2009) so this is from the missing years.


Blue

It is very frustrating and just imagine how much money we could have saved over the years on certificates. It would be ideal if ever they acquired the workhouse records, but I think we have to have patience, it is amazing just how much there actually is available on Ancestry and Findmypast compared with just a short while ago when we were eagerly awaiting each census to become transcribed and uploaded.

I use both the Liverpool C of E and RC records on Ancestry and the RC records are a lot better they are more reliable the only obstacles are the usual transcription variations but with the C of E you end up using Ancestry, Lancs BMD, Lancs OPC and Family Search because there's no one stop shop when it comes to the C of E.


Blue

Blue70 wrote:the only obstacles are the usual transcription variations

plus the variety of names "latinicised" by the priest. I recently met somebody at the Help Desk who was pretty adamant that there should be a Jacob in the family because of the baptism of Jacobus - it wasn't until I found the census entry that she accepted that it was James. Apart from these usual ones there are quite a number of obscure latin names.

I know there are St Peters ones that are not online at Ancestry. I'm (slowly) transcribing the 1849 - 1852 Marriage records for it for LANOPC. I believe we've only just recently received the records from LDS who hold them. Keep checking LANOPC they will be on there eventually. We've been told this week we have passed the 7 million record mark for Lancashire which are now online
If anyone wants me to check for those years I will have a look

Thanks a lot for the update Linda and also for your very kind offer. We look forward to seeing them online soon.

Just tried searching for a baptism - 6th May 1862 - S.Peter's, Liverpool - Joseph Barton - most of 1862 is missing!

big g wrote:Just tried searching for a baptism - 6th May 1862 - S.Peter's, Liverpool - Joseph Barton - most of 1862 is missing!

http://interactive.ancestry.co.uk/2196/ ... 52_m_00028

Bert,
I had been looking on online parish clerks site....................
Thanks.
Glen

Now that Family Search has some Liverpool parish register images there's often a choice of image here's their image:-

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1 ... cat=122430


Blue