Dear John,
Many thanks for your comprehensive advice on the status of the RAD parish
registers prior to 1813.
Since a trip to the NLW from this side of the world could prove a mite
expensive, as could engaging a researcher without a known parish to start
from, I guess I'm going to have to wait for the on-line index that you said
is being prepared in your subsequent advice to Tomi Larson.
Thanks again. Much appreciated.
Dave Matthews
Corlette, NSW, Australia
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 23:13:02 -0000
From: "John Ball" <john(a)jlb2005.plus.com>
Subject: Re: [POWYS] Davies south-east RAD
To: <powys(a)rootsweb.com>
Message-ID: <018501c7101e$180f2ee0$0201a8c0@JLBMeshPC>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Dave Matthews <matt42(a)pacific.net.au> wrote:
The IGI indexes for most of the parishes in SE RAD don't seem to go back
beyond 1813. Can anyone say why this is?
=================
Dear Dave,
Welcome to the Powys List.
The IGI is a rather incomplete resource for Welsh parishes. Its entries
are
extracted largely from the Bishop's Transcripts of parish registers rather
than on the parish registers themselves.
However, the National Library of Wales (NLW) in Aberystwyth holds the most
complete set of Welsh parish registers. For example, according to
Phillimore, the NLW holds the registers for Clyro (RAD) back to 1688.
Copies
of these registers may also be found at the Powys Archives in Llandrindod
Wells. Unfortunately, these cannot yet be accessed directly on-line.
The registers of a few Radnorshire parishes, including those for Old
Radnor,
are held at the County Record Office in Hereford, because Old Radnor was
in
the Diocese of Hereford (in England).
[Source: HUMPHERY-SMITH, Cecil, ed. (1995) "The Phillimore Atlas and Index
of Parish Registers", Phillimore & Co. Ltd. Chichester; ISBN
0-85033-950-2]
On 1st January 1813, the Established Church began using a standard printed
baptism register which had a column for the parents' surname. Before 1813
there was no surname column in the registers. When compling the IGI, the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints assumed (wrongly) that prior
to
1813 every Welsh child took its fathers' given name as its surname - a
patronymic system of naming. Before 1813 therefore, the Welsh IGI entries
are indexed by given name rather than surname. In fact, the majority of
the
people in Wales switched to fixed surnames well before 1813. For further
details see the relevant article by Chris Pitt Lewis in Rowlands (1998).
[Source: ROWLANDS, John & Sheila, eds. (1996) "The Surnames of Wales",
Federation of Family History Societies (Publications) Ltd., Birmingham UK;
ISBN 1-86006-025-0]
Kind regards,
John
--------------------
John Ball, Ystalyfera, near Swansea, Wales, UK
E-mail: john(a)jlb2005.plus.com
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