Has anyone else been using, or trying to use, Ancestry's Lancashire Bishop's Transcripts? They are given under the title "Lancashire, England, Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812. They appear to have been on long pieces of paper - perhaps like scrolls - which have been cut across at totally arbitrary points, and I can find no year dates on them (apart from marriages, but I'm looking for baptisms and burials ) This, I cannot lay at Ancestry's door - I don't think. However, it means that the records don't add up: an ancestor born in October 1761 was, according to the BT, baptised in 1759 and now I find myself with another one baptised a year before he was born (1772/1773). I know that, when I go shopping, I'm quite capable of standing in front of what I'm looking for and not seeing it, to the point of asking other bemused shoppers if they know where the shop keep whatever it is Perhaps I'm doing the same with the dates on these records, so does anyone else have better eyesight than me? Some good Lancashire names are Pilkington, Parr, Fairclough, Huddleston, Hughes, Evans & Jones (looking for work in the metropolis) and Nicholson.
BTs vary greatly in their format so it's difficult to diagnose the problem . . . but I am wondering if the ones you've found are the kind that are on such big bits of parchment that they've had to be photographed in several bits. If you had the document in front of you it might be obvious what the date was, but on the scanned images it may not be on the image you happen to land on first. Which parish were you looking at?
Tried accessing the records yesterday evening and some of the images I looked at couldn't be dated as to the year. I occasionally read comments on transcripts I have, on purchased data CD's, that this or that entry differs between the parish record original and the BT. The dates confusion might have arisen when mistakes were made in preparing the BT. Sadly, no consolation to you mon ami. Have just renewed my subscription with Ancestry after an enforced 3 years absence. There were problems with the site too. Nearly every attempt to save an image brought up a screen saying there was a problem, would I please refresh my screen and try again. Welcome back!! Oops, there's a problem!!
Yes entries can and do differ! I have found wrong entries on the Northumberland Bishop Transcripts I was looking for someone who was `Widow of` - yet when I checked the parish record It said `Wife of` - that will teach me [lol]
The biggest blunder must come from some Warwickshire BT's. The parish records show the burial of a little girl 4 days after she was baptised. It's the other way round in the BT!!
This seems to be exactly the problem, Huncamunca, but I did go to previous pages to try to find the beginning of the year and still couldn't find a date other than months and days. Perhaps I should have persevered further, but then counting back again, I would probably have got it wrong ... like Ancestry? I was looking for parishes in Liverpool; they are jumbled together.
And there was me, having discovered that Staffordshire PRs are scattered in different locations, thinking that I could save money by going and looking everything up in one place, on the Bishop's Transcripts
Good luck with Ancestry New Style after your long absence! I renewed maybe a month before they brought it in for good, although there'd been a message saying they would for ages (but I ignore things like that, being a technophobe, just as I ignored my email provider sending me an email about security updates and changes ... and cursed them to bits when they wouldn't let me into my own email box on Sunday evening ). I'm gradually getting used to Ancestry NS. Findmypast have done the same thing and become very user-unfriendly - unless you take the time to learn. Who's got time? We've got ancestors to find!
Thanks for your good wishes my friend. Tell me about FMP!! Incidentally, they are begging me to renew my subscription with them. Their latest offer is, renew now and we will give you £40 M&S vouchers. I know M&S sales returns are bad but never realised they were that bad. I'm hanging out for a better offer such as: Fail to demolish all your brick walls within 12 months, and we will refund double the subscription fee. I had been a subscriber of theirs for about 2 years when an upgrade to my OS made it impossible to view their images. According to FMP the problem lay with my viewer app, so visit the viewer site, download their latest version, install it and all will be hunky dory. Now, the good folks at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California are rather choosy about what we Apple devotees can download simply by clicking the mouse, and my OS refused to allow me to download the update. It took quite some time to find a way round the download ban. The update was downloaded and the file opened. A splash screen appeared: "A NEWER version of this app is already installed on your machine. Do you wish to proceed?" No prizes for guessing the answer. My subscription had about 2 weeks to run so I voted with my feet. So far things overall are going well on Ancestry, finds to date include a horrible case of the name's the same but, and confirming that some lateral thinking gave the right answer. May even put these on as threads.
