Talk:England, Kent, Parish Registers - FamilySearch Historical Records

There are two diocesan archives in Kent; The Diocese of Rochester parishes are deposited at the Centre for Kentish Studies at Maidstone; The Diocese of Canterbury deposited records are at the Canterbury Cathedral Archive within Canterbury Cathedral precincts. It would be helpful to identify which diocese and parishes are intended to be included in this publication of records. In addition the Medway Archives image collections have already been included in the appropriate wiki pages; North West Kent Family History Society links to parish history have been completed and work is going forward on deposited material in the London Metropolitan Archive, Greenwich Archives Lewisham Archives and Bromley Local Studies library. Diocese of Chichester parishes have been identified in Kent also since some parishes are part of that diocese although located in the county of Kent.

Contributors are completing pages for both diocese. The present closure (January- July 2012) of the Canterbury Cathedral archive will slow contributions for the East Kent Diocese of Canterbury.

As elsewhere in other FamilySearch Record publications, Wiki contributors would be assisted by a content table for which parishes are intended to be included if these are to be covered prior to publication. Given the size of both diocese in the county this would enable local contributors to support your intended publication of records in future. Both diocese have a group of locally based contributors to this project Hostelry 21:01, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I infer from the title of this page and the link to the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone that it is intended to publish images for a number of parishes in West Kent, that is, part of the Diocese of Rochester. If you are inviting contributors to develop this page content it would be helpful if you could be specific about which parishes and to what extent parish registers and the percentage of diocesan Archdeaconry and Bishop's Transcripts are involved in the intended publication. If this is an image only publication it would also be useful if you could indicate any intention to index and given the extent of existing transcription collection within the Centre for Kentish Studies for parish registers and Bishop's Transcripts whether any FamilySearch index created will overlap or duplicate this existing collection?

May I also point out that you have within the page two references to citing sources; one relates to the collection two others to entirely different countries. The page needs to be edited to refer only to the specific records which are intended for publication, that is please edit the template to fit the country of publication! May I suggest a content table would enhance the page and enable existing local contributors working within the various archives which may/may not be involved to contribute. You may already see within parish pages reference to local online transcriptions and the identification of IGI batches. There are several instances of existing FamilySearch collection large scale indexing errors within the county where indexers have attributed events for whole microfilm reel to one parish instead of the six parishes itemised on the film reel. I hope that answers to these points would be offered to those of us in the county who are contributing in the face of FamilySearch wiki technical difficulties and indifferent response to feedback about errors in FamilySearch entries in the film catalogue presentation and search experience offered, or the errors in the mythical FamilySearch collections like "England Marriages". Ps1964 04:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I note that FamilySearch has 7 other series of records for future publication from Kent, including Poor Law, parish chest etc. In the equivalent page for Sussex there is an explicit statement:

"These parish registers were acquired from the East and West Sussex Record Offices under multiple projects. The source list contains a total of (263) unique rolls of microfilm - (231) of these rolls of microfilm have never been indexed. The remaining rolls have only partial indexes and should be re-indexed as a part of this project. The contract with the East and West Record Offices limit the publication of images. Because of these restrictions, we are moving this forward as "Publish Index" only project."

This clearly outlines the terms of the contract to publish onlne images as well as the scope of the project; when further enquiries were made a list of parishes was obtained which contributors then began to complete.

In the case of Kent those of us who have contributed extensively to both Sussex and Kent parish pages need to be clear what the allusion in the source citation of digital files relates to in the number and name of parishes. Since there are plannned transfers of material to the Centre for Kentish Studies to accompany development of the Family History Centre and the FamilySearch microfilming in various stages is historic it will be necessary for a digital image to be linked correctly to the place in which the original record will be deposited in the light of transfer of material from Canterbury Archive to Maidstone in the year or so ahead. Because a Parish register was microfilmed in the past at Canterbury it does not follow that the original record will remain there in 2013, since all staff at Canterbury are employed within the Kent Archive Service and the development of the Archive service is changing in offering record production to the public.

I would like to be clear what contributor content you are seeking in this page along with colleagues; I would also point out that the similar Sussex page contains specific content about the transcript series and in other Diocese there are also explanations of how each Diocese conserved the Archdeacon and Bishop's Transcript series. Durham Bishop's Transcripts: The Howe Manuscript Collection shows the way in which a local contributor familiar with the collection of records can describe the arrangement of a Diocesan archive in detail and link to parishes in other counties which are covered. The Diocese of Norfolk has both Archdeacon and Bishop's Transcript series and these need description.

If it transpires that parishes included in this FamilySearch project are already within the Transcript collection at the Centre for Kentish Studies Maidstone; that is there are existing transcriptions with surname indexes available and in use then his should be clearly identified within each parish page to aid the researcher. This collection is not included in the contract for future publication by FamilySearch but nevertheless is a valuable and widely used aid to research and need to be identified to readers of the FamilySearch Research Wiki. In view of the large number of English county collections scheduled for future publication in creating pages such as this one is it not possible for each of these points to be addressed before local contributions are invited ? It does appear that in every case FamilySearch attempts to re-invent the wheel when asking for assistance from local practitioners in the original record source who work in the archive regularly. Crescunt 13:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)


 * We do not have the staff necessary to provide the detailed information you requested. I have forwarded your comments on to the project manager and collection operations specialist.

Request for information about Collection Content
As one of the contributors to the England, Sussex, Church of England, Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records) similar page request for contributors to describe the arrangement of Diocesan Archdeacon and Bishop's Transcripts in the Diocesan Record Office for the Diocese of Chichester I am extremely disappointed to see a member of staff from FamilySearch claim that "we do not have the staff necessary" in response to a request for collection content information. In Sussex information was provided which enabled those locally handling the original records on a weekly basis to contribute to the outline page you have here and go on to provide detailed content for each parish. You will also find that local missing parish registers but surviving Diocesan Archives transcripts for parishes are discussed on the discussion page for Diocese of Chichester.The Sussex content is an ongoing task for local contributors but you have received substantial content for the whole content simply by explaining which parishes you intend in future to index due to a contractual agreement.

The same request for the various Diocesan Record Offices involved in Kent has been expressed but the response is very different and unlikely to achieve the co-operation of local contributors.

If you are making a request for local contributors to complete parts of this page please do not alienate us by responses pleading lack of staff. You will find contributions on existing pages for other Diocese which have been provided and are relevant to this collection. If FamilySearch cannot identify the extent of the collection with a content table then it cannot reasonably expect contributors to undertake this for them. We are volunteers willing to contribute our familiarity with local material; if you have created an outline page and requested our help please be good enough to be specific about the records you need help with. There seems little point in asking for help unless you specify what you are seeking help with. Perhaps the staff you refer to should provide this information if as it seems there are various staff groups involved in a request for contributions and the creation of a wiki page in advance of a future collection of your records. You need to express these requests for contributors much more clearly as an organisation than in this case. I find it difficult to imagine any colleague being other than feeling rebuffed by the response offered here. I am also concerned to see that you are not developing the created page by learning from previous page content contributed elsewhere; each Diocesan series of records feels like re-inventing the wheel.

Chichgirl 15:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)