I have joined MonGenes, having been completely open about my involvement
with the Glamorgan List, FreeBMD and Glamorgan FHS.
The Mongenes database of parish record transcriptions is password protected.
It is well organised and it is possible to see what parishes are covered,
for what events, and for what dates. The search facility is useful and
produces results in a helpful form. I was pleasantly surprised to find the
marriage of my great-grandmother's brother, and the baptisms of most of his
children, in parishes I would not have thought of looking in.
I do not know whether all the data that used to be on Mike John's site is
now on Mongenes. I suspect not.
I see that there seem to be some Monmouthshire transcriptions appearing on
FreeReg, the most obvious place to put parish register transcriptions which
can be freely searched by anyone. FreeReg provides information about which
parishes are transcribed, for what dates.
Familysearch.org also has quite a selection of Monmouthshire parish records.
You start by 'browse by location' and 'United Kingdom and Ireland' on the
home page, then select 'Wales' and then you find 'Wales,Monmouthshire Parish
Records' . The coverage is a bit patchy, and it is not easy to find which
parishes are covered and over what dates. In most cases the data is free,
but in some cases you only seem to find a year for an event, and have to
look at the findmypast image to see the full data.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hughwallis/IGIBatchNumb...
takes you into the IGI records held on Familysearch, parish by parish with
years shown. This link does not show the full extent of registers available
from Familysearch via the 'Wales,Monmouthshire Parish Records' dataset.
Another place to look for a few transcriptions of parish registers is The
Ogre at
http://www.cefnpennar.com/ I suspect that the cost of maintaining
the large numbers of images of gravestones that used to be on that site may
have proved excessive, so some datasets are now being sold to maintain the
site. He now has some Monmouthshire Catholic records.
What does not seem to exist for any county that I am aware of is a total
list of what parish registers are available, where, either for free or by
subscription. Such a list would be valuable, as it might prevent the same
records being transcribed repeatedly - like Llandenny baptisms, where my
great-grandmother's cousins appear in a variety of searchable sources.
Jeff
list admin, Glamorgan list
----- Original Message -----
From: "ann" <annmacey(a)ntlworld.com>
To: <monmouthshire(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 6:19 PM
Subject: Re: [MON] Query re Mike John's site
Hi Jane,
The contents of the site have been taken over by a group of nine new
owners. They have moved the data to the MonGenes Yahoo group and you have
to apply for membership to that group.
I applied and was refused because - and I quote from the email I received
"We have denied your application because our approach is totally different
to that of GFHS. We aim to make as much data as possible available free
of charge."
The GFHS mentioned is Gwent Family History Society. This is not strictly
true because you have to be a member of the group to use the information
and while they do not charge a fee for joining, they do refuse to let
family historians join if they are members of Gwent Family History
Society – unless I have it totally wrong and it is just me they are
refusing. That approach IS totally different to GFHS who let anybody join.
Ann Macey
List Admin