Projects

CHFHS Projects

For 40 years the members of Cambridgeshire & Huntingdonshire Family History Society have been transcribing and indexing the records of the ancient counties of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely.

All Parish Registers for the counties are now transcribed and available in the shop as CD or pdf download. Members also have access to the individual database records. All data has been completed and checked against Bishop's Transcripts, which is a magnificent achievement.

Other complete transcriptions include censuses 1841-1871, Poor Law Papers and Wisbech Shipping Papers. Also other completed projects include Non-Conformist Records, Quarter and Petty Sessions, Cambridge Vaccinations. There are many other projects/records completed. See the record list here

Volunteers

Project work is carried out by volunteers under the direction of the Project Co-ordinator and his team. Large projects may take years to complete and require the input of dozens of people. If you would like to help in any way please contact the Project Co-ordinator.

The work includes transcribing, checking and matching records to images from a variety of sources which are rich in names; there are many types of document , pdf, images of transcriptions and copies of the original registers from the Archives - this may include difficult to read handwriting or occasionally Latin. All input and checking is done through a web based form and when complete become available through the CHFHS database search on the webiste.

Current Projects

Huntingdonshire Surname/Place Search

The Society has commenced a project to incorporate all the Huntingdonshire parish registers that we currently hold as pdf files into our database search capability.

This process involves taking each page of a transcribed register and manipulating the data to a standardised output ready to be checked by volunteers and then input to the CHFHS database. Some of the registers are digital images of the original transcript and will need to be extracted manually before checking can be carried out and subsequent publication.

Of the 140+ files that the Society received there are approximately 75 that are solely parish records with some including Monumental Inscriptions, 40 separate Monumental Inscription files, 20 miscellaneous files such as Non-Conformist and some duplication including surname indexes of the whole county.

The monumental Inscriptions will need to be done separately as the extraction of names and dates from these files will be very complex. There are also a large number of photographs that could be extracted from the files at some point in the future. Of those parish records remaining there are approximately 18,500 pages of records which have at least 30 records on each page.

In total there are approximately 560,000 records to process. This will increase our database to over 5 million records. Some Huntingdonshire parishes are still in the process of being transcribed so there will be more records in the future.

The conversion and subsequent checking will not be a quick process and it will take many months if not years to get all the parishes ready for public consumption. We will publish registers a parish at a time and advertise this on the website, in the newsletter, journal and via Social Media. Any willing volunteers for manual extraction (retyping) or checking please click here to contact the Project Co-Ordinator. Click here to see a list of completed and part completed parishes that are available in the database search. All available records are also downloadable here

Wisbech and Fenland Museum Project

The Society and Wisbech and Fenland Museum signed a contract to work together to digitise the 32 parish registers in the Museum collection. The project fits the strategic objectives of both the Museum and the Society including partnership working; increasing access to collections; generating income.

Both the Museum and the Society have been working in close liaison with Cambridgeshire Archives, who lent specialist book scanning equipment. The parishes that are in Cambridgeshire are: Coldham, Elm, Friday Bridge, Gorefield, Guyhirn, Leverington, Murrow, Newton, Parson Drove, Southea, Tydd St Giles and Wisbech

The image capture is complete, and Society volunteers are matching these to the existing Society transcripts using a bespoke programme written by the Society. The matched results are searchable on the Society database.

There are about 50,000 pages, 500,000 records. The project is nearing completion with a small number of parishes in Cambridgeshire to complete. The Society is liaising with the Fenland FHS, and Norfolk where the registers cross the boundary.

What volunteers are currently working on for inclusion in the database search: