06 October 2010

Findmypast.co.uk Announcement on Manchester Records

The following is a press release from Findmypast.co.uk about a project in cooperation with FamilySearch.org

o       Two year project to scan 8,000,000 records
o       First time these records have ever been made available online

Findmypast.co.uk, the UK family history website, has been awarded the contract by Manchester Archives to digitise cemetery registers plus institutional (gaol, school, workhouse) records of Manchester and will work with FamilySearch International, the world's largest repository of genealogical records, to make them fully searchable online for the very first time.

Findmypast.co.uk and FamilySearch will be digitising an estimated 130,000 images and 8,000,000 records over the next two years. The records will cover all of Manchester and some parts of Lancashire, due to boundary movement over the centuries. The records will include entries going back to the sixteenth century. In the collection being released the 19th century prison registers of the area will also be made available.

Every record from cemetery registers and institutional (gaol, school, workhouse) records of Manchester will be available free at any City of Manchester library.

The records available will include:
o       Manchester Overseers of the Poor Apprenticeship Indentures
o       Giles Shaw transcripts for parish registers including Oldham St. Mary: Baptisms 1662-1796; Marriages 1662-1816; Burials 1662-1826
o       Private cemeteries (now closed)
o       Ardwick Cemetery: burial registers, 1838-1950
o       Rusholme Road Cemetery: burial registers, 1821-1933
o       Cheetham Hill Wesleyan Cemetery: burial registers, 1815-1968
o       Workhouse Records
o       Withington Workhouse: Creed registers 1869-1898, birth registers 1857-1911, death registers 1857-1949
o       Withington Workhouse: Creed registers 1898-1911
o       Withington Workhouse: Interment Registers -1898-1915
o       Withington Workhouse: admission registers
o       Manchester Workhouse, New Bridge Street, 1881-1899
o       Manchester Workhouse, New Bridge Street, Creed Registers 1900-1911
o       Manchester Industrial Schools: admission registers 1866-1912
o       Manchester Schools: admission registers c.1870-1915
o       19th cent. prison registers

FamilySearch will scan original images of the registers for findmypast.co.uk to then make available online at findmypast.co.uk with an index search on FamilySearch.org.

Debra Chatfield, Marketing Manager at findmypast.co.uk, said: "It is fantastic that we will be able to make these records available to search online for the very first time. Manchester is one of the largest cities outside London, and by making these records available online family history researchers will be able to discover even more about the lives of their Mancunian ancestors.

"We are looking forward to working with Greater Manchester County Record Office and hope this is the first of many partnerships. We are also very happy to be working with FamilySearch again on such an important project."

Councillor Mike Amesbury, Manchester City Council's executive member for culture and leisure said: "We are continually developing our library and archive services to make them much more accessible and easy to use. We're really excited to be working with findmypast.co.uk and FamilySearch to digitise these records so that they will be easily available to everyone at the simple click of a button."

Findmypast.co.uk was the first company in the world to put the complete Birth, Marriage and Death indexes (BMDs) for England and Wales online in 1 April 2003. Previously these were only available offline on microfiche or in registry books, at a selected number of locations. This landmark achievement was recognised in 2007, when findmypast.co.uk won the Queen's Award for Innovation.

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