How to access British church records if you're not in England

Question

Recently a user asked me this question: "I am trying to come forward from 600 years of my family in the 17th century, to link with recent family in the 1800s, in Lancashire/Cheshire. I suppose there must be baptism records, but how do I see them from New Zealand?". See my answer below.

Comments

Here's an invaluable reference to the United Kingdom. This is volunteer-run; some counties are vastly better than others.

www.genuki.org.uk

Answer 1

 

You can definitely try http://www.FamilySearch.org - they have been digitizing and indexing their massive 2.5 million rolls of microfilm, which includes a huge collection of British parish records and making them available for free on their website.  If they don't have the records you want available online (everything is free with them online!), you can go to one of the also free Family History Centers, and request a copy of the microfilm be sent (there is a small charge for microfilm, to cover postage). I've done this at a FHC in Texas, USA,  and taken one of my lines of British ancestors back to the 1500s through the microfilmed copies of the original parish registers of births, marriages and deaths!

Here is a link that will tell you where all of the Family History Centers are in New Zealand: https://familysearch.org/locations/centerlocator?c=City&s=State&p=Postal+Code&n=new+zealand

 

They are run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), but are open to the public, and staffed by volunteers who are often experts in their field, and eager to help you, for free. Even though the centers are usually attached to or inside a church building, staff or others are not allowed to proseletyze in the Family History Centers. They are just there for genealogy.

Answer 2

Hi

you could try www.uk-geneology.org.uk i have found this site usefull

Comments

geneology? I think this is misspelled as it does not work as a link. I tried  www.uk-genealogy.org.uk and it took me to ukga.org. Hope this is useful to anybody trawling old messages like me.

Answer 3

You can also start with the 3 free transcription sites:

www.freereg.org.uk - parish registers

www.freebmd.org.uk - civil BMD's

www.freecen.org.uk - free census

The parish registers can be a mixed bag depending on the availability of the registers for transcription.

Comments

Thanks for those links! I knew about FreeBMD but not the parish registers one!