Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 31, June 1, 1850 - Various - Страница 2

Among the good services rendered to the public by yourself and your correspondents, few, I think will be found more important than that of having drawn their attention to Mr. Wyatt Edgell's valuable suggestions on the transcription of Parochial Registers. The supposed impracticability of his plan has perhaps hitherto deterred those most competent to the work from giving it the consideration which it deserves. I believe the scheme to be perfectly practicable; and, as a first move in the work, I send you the result of my own dealings with the registers of my parish.

It is many years since I felt the desideratum which Mr. Edgell has brought before the public; and, by way of testing the practicability of transcribing, and printing the parochial registers of the entire kingdom in a form convenient for reference, I made an alphabetical transcript of my own, which is now complete. The modus operandi which I adopted was this:—1. I first transcribed, on separate slips of paper, each baptismal entry, with its date, and a reference to the page of the register, tying up the slips in the order in which the names were entered in the register; noting, as I proceeded, on another paper, the number of males and females in each year.

2. The slips being thus arranged, they came in their places handy for collation with the original. I then collated each, year by year; during the process depositing the slips one by one in piles alphabetically, according to the initial letter of the surnames.

3. This done, I sorted each pile in an order as strictly alphabetical as that used in dictionaries or ordinary indices.

4. I then transcribed them into a book, in their order, collating each page as the work proceeded.

5. I then took the marriages in hand, adopting the same plan; entering each of these twice, viz. both under the husband's and the wife's name.

6. Next, the burials, on the same plan.

7. I then drew up statistical tables of the number of baptisms, marriages, and burials in each year, males and females separately where the register appeared badly kept, making notes of the fact, and adding such observations as occasionally seemed necessary.

8. I then drew up lists of vicars, transcripts of miscellaneous records of events, and other casual entries that appeared in the register.1

I noted, as I went on, the time occupied in each of these operations. It was as follows:—

My registers begin in the year 1558, and the present population of the parish is about 420, so that you have here an account of the labour necessary to complete an alphabetical transcript of the register of a rural parish of that extent in population.

I send you the result as a first step to a work of great national importance, and of inestimable value with relation to family descent, title to property long in abeyance, &c. &c. As to statistics, I doubt whether any data worthy of consideration can be obtained from these sources, owing to the constant irregularities which occur in keeping the registers.

No man, much less the minister of a parish, who has abundant calls upon his time, can be expected to sit down to the task of transcribing his registers through many consecutive hours; but there are few who could not give occasionally one or two hours to the work. In this way I effected my transcripts; the work of 195 hours being distributed through nearly five months—no great labour after all.

On an average, twelve words, with the figures, may be calculated for each entry, which will give for this parish about 500 folios. Each entry having been transcribed twice, we may call it, at a rough calculation, 1000 folios written out ready for printing.

If the authorities at the Registrar-General's office would give their attention to it, they must have there abundant data on which to form calculations as to the probable cost of the undertaking And I cannot help thinking that, setting aside printing as an after consideration, alphabetical transcripts, at least, might be obtained of all the parochial registers in the kingdom, and deposited in that office, at no insurmountable expense; and if the cost appear too heavy, the accomplishment of the work might be distributed through a given number of years; say ten, or even twenty.

Parliament might, perhaps, be induced to vote an annual grant for so important a work till it was accomplished; albeit, when we think of their niggardly denial of any thing to the printing, or even the conservation of the public records, sanguine hopes from that quarter can hardly be indulged.

To insure correctness, without which the scheme would be utterly valueless, I would propose that a certain number of competent transcribers be appointed for each county, either at a given salary, or at a remuneration of so much per entry, to copy the registers of those parishes the ministers of which are unwilling to do it, or feel themselves unequal to the task. The option, however, should always, in the first instance, be given to the minister, as the natural custos of the registers, and as one, from local knowledge, likely to do the work correctly. To each county there should also be appointed one or more competent persons as collators, to correct the errors of the transcribers.

I throw out these rough hints in the hope that some of your correspondents will furnish their ideas on the subject, till we at last arrive at a fully practicable plan of carrying out Mr. Wyatt Edgell's suggestions, and, at all events, obtain transcripts, if not printed copies, of every register in the kingdom.

L.B.L.